The Driving Force of Life (Part 2)

"Alright! We win again today, and the hope lives on!"

While Busan's manager, Park Tae-jung, was cheering over the slightly extended odds of his own life expectancy, the players who had run themselves ragged for the past two days were slowly, steadily, unmistakably wearing down.

"Hah... hoo..."

The catcher's very breathing was ragged. Of anyone on the field, Jin Dong-ha was the closest to empty.

Battling that cursed bastard since the start of the season had been a grueling ordeal that gnawed away at body and mind alike — and now, with the season in its final stretch, the accumulated fatigue had finally begun to swallow him whole.

"Whew, it's brutal today."

Guiding a team through Korea's hot, long, punishing baseball season as a catcher bordered on outright torment. And when the backup who was supposed to spell you now and then played defense so badly you wondered whether he was trying to start a beef instead of fielding his position—

"Sorry, but what can you do? Even you can see how ugly that was."

"...Goddammit, these useless bastards and their backup defense. Play some actual defense, for once."

There is, after all, a reason managers grind a young starting catcher into the dirt.

And on top of all that, he'd moved a little too hastily trying to tag out Noh In-seong.

Doing something you don't normally do always carries extra risk.

For instance: a fat player who doesn't run makes the fans curse him—

"So I ran, and I tore my hamstring."

"Yikes. Well, then don't run — just win anyway."

"You absolute lunatics — what rhythm am I supposed to dance to here?"

—but if that fat player has a hamstring injury, the fans scream at him to just walk instead.

Jin Dong-ha's hamstrings, thank goodness, were fine — a perk of being a young catcher.

Throb—

"Ugh...!!"

But young or not, the catcher-specific risks that pile up all the way back in middle and high school were another story entirely.

The body parts that bear your full weight — and, at the same time, the parts a catcher has no choice but to fold in half. The Catcher's Three Chronic Afflictions: hemorrhoids and the lower back.

"His knees are swollen up like balloons? He can barely walk as it is."

And right now, the spot being slathered in pain patches and hastily packed with ice was — the knees.

Swollen to the point that even walking out of the dugout was a struggle. Playing was out of the question.

Jin Dong-ha was forcibly substituted.

"...Haaah..."

Park Tae-jung, who had been sprinting around cheering everyone on not five minutes earlier, let out a sigh. Then he watched the next catcher squeeze into his gear, and that sigh grew several sizes larger.

"HAAAAH...!!!"

Suddenly, come the next inning, the catcher had switched from Jin Dong-ha to some nameless nobody. In-seong was fairly sure he hadn't laid eyes on the man since spring camp — all he could recall were his old numbers. The scouting reports said he was a catcher with virtually no defensive record to speak of. Could that actually be true?

"Ooh, where'd the starting catcher go — and where'd this random benchwarmer crawl out from?"

"...Se. Nior."

"Yes, yes, se-nior. The king of the scrubs, benched behind even our team's scrub catcher."

"You little son of a...!!"

If you want to be treated like my senior, how about you fight a little harder for actual playing time.

The first pitch was a breaking ball. Setting aside the fact that the grip was visible from behind the pitcher's head, the ball itself came in slow enough to identify on sight. An honest-to-god hanging forkball. That's a ball, and he'll block it, right? In-seong let the pitch go—

"Ball...??"

Thud...

"What the—?!"

Botching a basic block — a completely maddening state of affairs.

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

"...Hold on. You're not actually a catcher by position, are you? You just... came out here as one anyway?"

"......"

Watching his face flame scarlet — no, so that wasn't it either.

Hah, honestly. How on earth did these guys get drafted, and how have they still not been cut?

"Do they still stack the depth chart by school ties out here? How did a bastard like that ever hold down a starting job?"

Flinch!

Haha, you're still active? I figured you'd vanish after I died.

No wonder these bastards keep finishing dead last, year after year.

Noh In-seong stared at the catcher with pure, unfiltered contempt.

"Okay, fine, granted — but this is the first time I'm the one having a hard time against these guys?"

Setting aside Busan's pathetic internal affairs and their revolving-door catcher, Noh In-seong was, in fact, having his own troubles with the desperation of Busan's players.

"Whoa, these guys have flames in their eyes."

A center fielder who laid out sprinting for first on a bunt, determined to survive at any cost. A third baseman who laced a single, eyed second base, realized he was too slow, gave up, and looked genuinely heartbroken about it. The sheer tenacity of these players — wretched and defiant in equal measure — actually bought Busan runs.

Kim Taek-gyu hauled himself up at home plate, wheezing, dusted off the dirt, and trudged back into the dugout.

But nobody in that dugout answered him anymore.

"...Ha..."

Jin Dong-ha was gone with his knee injury. Jung Jin-gi was standing out there on the basepaths. And So Dong-jin was probably at home, a day removed from his start.

In the seventh, the two heroes who had struck again for Busan both looked up at the scoreboard at the same time. There, set against the 3 they had carved onto it, sat another number — a number so big that no amount of In-seong being off his game could ever chase it down.

Let a struggling In-seong keep pitching? They could probably have squeezed it out — but.

"I'm no idiot. He's done for today."

"In-seong might not love it, but I don't think he'll hate it either. His stuff was getting squared up all game."

By simple arithmetic, this counts as three consecutive shutout appearances anyway. "Hyo-jin, you ready?"

"I'll ring the bullpen."

Cho Hyo-jin, the setup man and certified win-preservation specialist, was loosening up for one of In-seong's games for the first time in a very long while.

And then—

"Swing, strike three — batter out!"

The next hitter went down flailing at a curveball.

Crack—!!

And then — as if bad defense were contractually obligated to follow bad hitting — the opposing catcher grounded into a double play, and the inning died.

That cursed bastard raised his glove toward the fans cheering for him and hollered:

"This is my first championship glove — I'm signing it and selling it?! You better buy it! Buy two! It's a limited edition!"

"...Ugh, In-seong. Shouldn't you be saying something like 'thank you, fans' or 'I love you all' right now?"

"Oh, that's how it works? Love you too. Now buy a goddamn replica jersey on your way out!"

"...Let's just not talk."

And so he strangled the life out of Busan right down to the final out, then walked off. The numbers of those fighting to survive were erased.

The numbers of those fighting to finish it off were erased as well.

There were the fans in Doubles uniforms, roaring themselves hoarse as the championship call rang out—

—and there were the fans in Marines uniforms, sunk into hopeless ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠despair, wondering when on earth they would ever hear that call.

In Busan's home stadium, where their euphoria and agony crossed paths, the Seoul Doubles etched their name onto one side of 2051's grandest stage.

They had set foot on the most commanding high ground from which to hoist the real championship trophy.

"We're the champions!!"

"It's over! Hell yes! Things are about to get so much easier!!"

The Doubles players tore around Busan's home stadium, beside themselves with joy. The manager, the coaches, the rest of the squad — everyone was running in circles celebrating.

"Alright, time for the championship photo! Gather round!"

Because a championship isn't truly won until the achievement has been properly taxidermied. The players began to crowd together into one heaving mass.

"Whoa, we clinched it while I was lying down for a bit?!"

"Haha... well, we've earned our spot in the photo."

The two position players who'd been stuck watching every game from a sickbed made it too.

"Ooh, fucking season over?"

"No, you idiot. There's still a month left, and fall baseball after that."

"Ooh, no. Freaking. Way?"

The two injured pitchers, who took a light joke with deathly seriousness, rounded out the frame as well.

"...Um, sorry, but could you two maybe hurry back a little faster? We have been through hell."

In-seong glared at the four of them with the face of a man who had seen too much — but all the same, the whole group huddled in, warm and grinning.

Click—!!

The photo was taken.

After the photo — it being an away game — the celebration stayed modest, just a championship banner, as the league commissioner handed over the plaque.

"Congratulations."

The commissioner — who had lost noticeably more hair thanks to the craziest bastard in the history of Korean baseball — handed over the plaque wearing a smile he had assembled with painstaking, manual labor.

"Much obliged."

Naturally, after obligatorily hoisting it one-handed—

Whoosh—!

"AAAGH! You maniac! That's the championship plaque!!"

"Don't let that lunatic anywhere near the plaque again!"

—there did happen to be a madman who casually flung it behind his back in a no-look pass. Still, at the tail end of August, the faces captured in that championship photo looked genuinely happy.

"Champagne! Fuck yeah, party time!"

"Damn, this alcohol is incredible! Pour it straight into my mouth!"

"That lunatic isn't spraying it — he's funneling it down his own throat! Hey! Stop him!"

A frenzied visiting locker room, everyone howling and hosing each other down with champagne. Whoever had to clean this up was, presumably, no longer among the living.

"Whoever's on cleaning duty today is a dead man."

Noh In-seong stared blankly at the fountain of premium champagne his own team was geysering into the air.

"Hey! In-seong! Why the hell are you standing there spacing out on a day this good!"

Over staggered Song Jin-wook — who had apparently swapped one sip for one entire bowl, and now radiated benevolence toward all of mankind.

"...Ugh, this madman got blackout drunk in the span of that tiny conversation!"

He'd made it over on his own two feet, but let's just say a breathalyzer administered through a straw would have failed him on the spot. The zigzagging wreck of a man looked ready to collapse motionless mid-bus-ride.

"Aren't you happy? We did it! We won the whole thing! Fuck — we carried the whole damn way!"

As Song Jin-wook hoisted his champagne bottle and bellowed his celebration—

"I am happy. At least I got on the cable car that runs right up to the summit."

—In-seong delivered the line that mattered most.

"Heh heh. Well, since we rode that cable car together, the rest of the climb is all yours."

And drunk Song Jin-wook, in a rare flash of wisdom, returned it in kind.

Snort—

"Whew. Yeah. That's big-brother positivity with absolutely zero logic behind it, alright."

The tension drained out of In-seong's face, and he raised his own bottle.

"Enjoy it now! All that's left is to not get injured and pitch four more good games!"

"—Alright, gentlemen! On three, we shout 'Cheers!' and down the whole thing!"

"Cheers—hahaha! Goddammit! Song Jin-wook! I love you, man!"

"That's right — every party needs a drinking captain!"

One, two, three!

"""CHEERS!!"""

And the bottoms of every champagne bottle in the room shot up toward the heavens.

"...Ugh. Herding these lunatics onto the bus is a job for the one sane person, isn't it."

BLAAAARGH—!!

"Now you're puking too?! Ugh, that is disgusting."

The humans with sky-high blood alcohol levels collapsed in heaps across the floor.

"What can you do, In-seong? We've come all this way — can't just leave them behind..."

"If that was a 'because it's Busan' joke, you're going to pay for it in more ways than one, Manager."

In-seong's blood pressure climbed with every single player who crumpled to the ground.

And so the team rolled north toward Seoul, the bus loaded down with human-shaped liquor containers that had all, without exception, hit bottom.

2051 — the Seoul Doubles, regular season champions!

When the news broke, the most interview requests did not go to the general manager. Nor to the manager.

"Noh In-seong, anything you'd like to say to Busan? About that draft grudge of yours?"

"Noh In-seong, your thoughts on the title? Does it feel like you won this championship?"

It was a holiday interview where a single quote could transform the leading digits of a view counter.

"Hah... honestly, I can't be bothered to comment on the sprouts I stomped into the dirt..."

With the interviewer happily pouring gasoline on the fire, the Busan reporters' faces had fully rotted off.

"Oh, come on, keep it simple. What was it I said in front of the Busan crowd a while back...? Remind me."

"Uh......"

He'd delivered such an epic, full-length address that even he couldn't remember all of it.

"You — you mean the provocation? After the game?"

From a Busan reporter's perspective, that hadn't been a provocation at all. It had been closer to a formal declaration of war.

"A provocation? Please. That was practical life advice."

In-seong — who loved Busan so much he had swallowed it whole and wanted to produce even more Busan inside his stomach — flared up just a touch.

"No, I said all that out of genuine concern for your future and your health, and this is the gratitude I get? Honestly. Ungrateful, the lot of you."

Thoroughly scratched where it hurt most, In-seong turned to the camera and rewound the tape to the start of the season.

"Move to Changwon. Or buy my replica jersey and wear it. Or get the hell out of my sight."

Finger extended, pointing dead ahead. Eyes, absolutely resolute.

As if waiting for someone, anyone, to come buy a uniform like his — Uncle Noh stared them all down.

Those who heard that interview were, of course, the Busan fans — already soaked in gasoline, lying in wait for a spark.

"You're handing the stadium over for a photo op to the bastards who dropped us into rock bottom?!"

Granted, plenty of teams lend out their stadium for visiting clubs' championship celebrations — so this was pure nitpicking. It stung and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it enraged them to watch the ceremony unfold in their own ballpark. It was a gripe grasped at out of pure spite.

"I'm jealous! It makes me sick!"

"That cursed bastard was supposed to come to Busan and grind his shoulders to dust carrying us to a championship! He was a superhuman sent for us!"

These were the sorts of statements In-seong would have answered with, "Then your manager should have retired in a mid-season accident." The hour of jealousy gave way to the hour of grievance.

"Weren't you all saying this year would finally be different?!"

"Different how?! That we're not dead last? That's only because the teams beneath us are selling their organs or being gutted alive!"

And what comes after that? In the five stages of grief, one eventually reaches acceptance—

"He won't come out?! Fuck it, we're torching the bus!"

"MANAGER!!! Get out here right now!!!"

But this city was a little different. Rage had replaced every single stage.

And once again, the bus packed full of Busan's players found itself surrounded by people packed full of rage.

"Heh. Yeah. That's Busan for you."

In-seong was laughing as he watched the breaking news the next day.

Baseball front offices are not things that change easily. Of course, they weren't the league office — an owner fuming with fury, or a crowd that spent the whole day screaming for their heads, could kill them outright if it really came to that.

For the people who had snubbed him in the draft to be flushed out entirely, a different kind of shock would be required.

Results.

Iron rice bowl or no iron rice bowl — in a situation like this? The team that could have drafted their own first-round pick instead watched that pick's team run its magic number down to zero, while they themselves got the last flicker of their fall baseball trampled underfoot by that very same first-round pick — a draft that now stood as a damning, symbolic monument?

"Can you hear me, Busan front office? This is your funeral march for next season."

Molotov cocktails. The fury of fans suddenly freed to spend the autumn at home doing other productive activities instead of watching fall baseball. The team bus nearly flipped — police desperately hurling up barricades, clashing, shoving—

And the general manager's car, already flipped and totaled, lying wrecked beside the team bus.

Watching all of it unfold, In-seong raised his Zero Coke as though this, precisely, were the driving force of his life.

"This is what it's all about—!"

A truly twisted human being, through and through.