The Holiday Special "My Golden Brat Noh In-seong" Airs

Episode 122: The holiday special My Golden Brat Noh In-seong premieres tonight.

The episode opens on the In-seong household, gathered in front of the television at the exact moment their son got tossed from the game.

They had long since given up on stopping him from throwing punches. All they could do now was watch through laced fingers, hearts in their throats — and yet, watching that eel-slick footwork, watching the nerve it took to lean back from a fist at the last possible instant, and then seeing the face of the man who'd surrounded him ground down into a mask of pure agony, they had, somehow, felt relieved.

"...I honestly don't know whether I should be relieved, or whether I should be apologizing to that poor boy's parents."

"Well, dear, it's still better than him getting hit, isn't it?"

Whether a parent's first priority was their child's moral education or their child's unbruised face was a question Noh In-seong had made a career of leaving permanently ambiguous.

"Eh, as long as he doesn't cause incidents outside the ballpark, I'll take it."

From a little sister's perspective, he wasn't a *bad* older brother — he played with her, after all. He just tended to go slightly insane about it.

It had been a while since Siyeon had thrown him a shield.

"Wait... is that right? Now that I think about it, the last time we went to the amusement park together, he didn't just break the stuff. He flat-out demolished the place."

The shield, tragically, did not survive contact with the truth.

Meanwhile, the day after In-seong got ejected, he strolled out at the crack of noon and came back having peeled a fine off the wall — a fine, and a wanted poster... no, sorry. A suspension notice.

"...Again? Six games this time too? Don't tell me—"

"...Oppa's going to be home for Chuseok, isn't he? Don't tell me—"

"Hmph. So *that's* why the brat was suddenly so diligent about grocery shopping."

Rational suspicion all around. The In-seong-forced-ejection-by-design theory was alive and well in that living room.

"WAAAH, NO IT'S NOT LIKE THAT!"

In-seong panicked and made a hopeless, doomed defense in front of his entire family — and was sunk without a trace, buoyed only by a level of trust that could best be summarized as 'we'll pretend to believe you, dear.'

***

Setting aside the wounded, deeply wronged heart of one Noh In-seong: with Chuseok falling on Monday this year, his suspension ran from Friday onward.

The one off-day was one thing, but—

"Sat-Sun are regular rest days, Monday and Tuesday are the holiday, and then I rest through Wednesday."

It was no coincidence that Siyeon had been skipping around the house grinning from ear to ear since the start of the week.

In-seong started folding fingers against the remaining schedule and the holiday stretch.

"Today's Friday, Busan for two on Sat-Sun, the Superstars for two on Mon-Tue."

Then a travel day after that, so wait—

"Excluding the Suwon series — which I'm missing anyway — I get the entire Chuseok holiday completely off?"

The family's suspicions had not been idle paranoia. Every one of them was a perfectly reasonable hypothesis.

"Damn it. Well, in for a penny — might as well shamelessly enjoy the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time off."

Beats an excuse: vacation. And even better than vacation: *more* vacation.

"In-seong, stop screwing around and come eat. I made galbijjim."

"Whoa—! Yaaay—!"

And so Noh In-seong came bounding out of his room like the most obedient puppy alive — a puppy exactly as golden as the hair on its head.

Never mind that this particular puppy deserved about a hundred yellow cards for the things he did with nary a single one.

***

"...This is serious."

Jeong Mi-ru, who had eaten a second spear tackle and re-fractured his ribs, was in serious condition. Song Jeong-woo was in far, far worse.

He'd been completely defenseless at the moment of impact, and what had come down was his face.

Concussion. Ribs broken again. Dental damage. Contusions. A fractured shoulder...

And that list wasn't even the half of it — though it was, mercifully, close to all of it.

"Uuuugh..."

Good old familiar hospital. Song Jeong-woo lay in the same hospital bed he'd occupied before, in the same ward as before.

The only difference?

"Nnnnngh..."

Jeong Mi-ru was now lying in the bed beside him.

It was, at least, some small comfort to have a cellmate he'd get to spend quality time with down in hell.

The real world is not a manga. Back in the day, a couple of broken ribs knitting back together was the end of it — but the shoulder is a genuinely delicate joint, and his right one — his throwing shoulder, God help him — was shaping up to be a much bigger story.

"Rehab is going to take quite a while."

When Incheon's fans heard their man might not return until *next year* — and mid-season at that — they erupted.

"That season's completely wrecked because of that bastard's animal behavior!"

"Doesn't their guy need to get hurt too?! Kill him! I'm telling you to kill him!"

Incheon's front office had its institutional dignity to consider, of course — retaliation was owed. But the world, as ever, flows like a self-serve soft-serve machine: you think you can stack your own cone thirty centimeters high, attempt it with full confidence, watch the whole thing collapse in seconds, and then still have to pay the part-time kid behind the counter.

Why they'd tried it while knowing it couldn't work, no one could say. Either way, Incheon ended up paying a steep price.

"Matt Jays! YOU'RE OUT OF THE GAME!"

"WHAT?!"

Classic administrative work — replacing the barn's building materials only after the entire barn has been swept away by a hurricane — but it *was* genuinely a game primed to boil over, so the measure was understandable. The rule 'one dead ball, and if it looks like it's poisoning the game, you're gone' was now in full effect.

Having lost their starter, Incheon fed their bullpen arms to the mound, where each of them got a thorough assessment of their talent.

"Your thesis is rejected."

CRACK---!!

Leading the retreat was teaching assistant Song Jin-wook, the sole survivor to receive a passing grade from Professor Noh In-seong in the subject of Hitting Only — every one of his colleagues had been rejected.

The final: 10-2. A comfortable, roomy rout for the Doubles.

'We are strong! We can beat weak teams even without In-seong!'

'Let's grind out wins until he's back and keep that winning-streak record alive.'

Everyone pulling in perfect unison, all so that no one would ever be able to say the team lost because of one man's absence.

Watching his players' collective movement with evident pleasure, Jung Im-taek doled out his praise.

"Good! We win today, and everyone wraps things up cleanly and rests up before the Busan series!"

"""One, two, three — GO DOUBLES!"""

As for the man who had watched this entire game in perfect comfort, scooping rice into the dregs of his galbijjim broth—

"Man, this is delicious."

—he was of one heart and mind with his teammates. Aside from the small detail that the galbijjim refills had his attention far more than the game did.

***

The next day, as the team prepared to face Busan, Noh In-seong greeted the sunshine from his bedroom.

Belly full, and with absolutely nothing to do on his impromptu holiday, something sparked in his head.

"...Hold on. The rule just says a suspended player can't attend *our team's* games. It never said anything about me not wearing a uniform."

Under KBO regulations, a suspended player sitting in the stands is not illegal.

But — a suspended player sitting in the stands and *not keeping his mouth civil*? That's another story entirely. Knowing the league, the next disciplinary letter would come stamped with 'shows no remorse,' so a man had to be careful.

"No paycheck for me, after all!"

Busan — guys he was already on terrible terms with — followed by the Superstars... wait a second.

"Come to think of it, I never did get around to screwing Busan over, did I."

He'd skipped the pitching, sure — but he could still have swung the bat. What a waste.

Muttering thoughts that would make Busan fans grind him into a pulp if they ever heard them, the man shuffled off to the shower.

The doomed Noh In-seong, trampling even the last surviving plant in the wasteland on his way out.

***

The next day, his father announced he had a long-overdue drinks appointment with an old friend at a bar.

"If you won't let me buy whiskey, then I shall simply go out and drink!"

"...Please don't deliver lines that sound like they belong to a legendary, world-class alcoholic."

His mother, meanwhile, took Siyeon to stay the night at the maternal family's place out in Gyeonggi Province.

"Mom will be back tomorrow, so don't cause trouble. There's plenty of food if you get hungry — just don't order out!"

"Have a safe trip~ Oppa's going to eat dinner all alone in the corner of his room, sad and pathetic, isn't he?"

Having his cramped social circle pointed out by his own little sister, In-seong raised a fist to deliver a knuckle sandwich to her head — but she had already bolted, and he could only glare at the retreating back of his sister and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mourn for her.

"Argh, damn brat."

He was simply vowing that *she* would be receiving a note of a slightly different yellow denomination come Lunar New Year.

Whether Siyeon taunted him with loser♡ no-friends♡ on her way out or not, Noh In-seong had his own business to attend to.

"Not much time left before first pitch, huh?"

This time, In-seong's target was Gwangju.

Only two teams stood to gain an advantage from the remaining schedule. Between the eliminated Suwon side with one game left and Gwangju, still alive in the standings with two, the choice of who to mess with was obvious.

Gwangju was playing Suwon that day, in what amounted to their final match-up. Just how would they react — a team sitting two games ahead of the Grizzlies in the standings — upon laying eyes on him?

"Oh, and look who it is. Oh Yeon-seok himself."

Hold the line through hell and high water, boy. Your master has come to observe your start in person.

***

In-seong bought a seat front and center behind home plate — the spot fans would ordinarily dream of — and sat down like he owned it.

"...Wait, who the hell is that?"

"Why is there a guy in a Doubles replica jersey here?"

Ignoring the murmuring around him with the confidence of a man who had never once registered social pressure, he stacked a mountain of snacks on the railing in front of him.

"KILL EACH OTHER! DAMN IT ALL! I HATE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU!"

Raising a middle finger in one hand and a cup of clear liquid over ice in the other, he began his cheering(?) in earnest. Anyone watching would have wondered whether the cup was full of vodka, or whether he was already three sheets to the wind.

"...Doesn't smell like alcohol, though?"

"He's doing that SOBER?!"

Stone-cold sober, ladies and gentlemen — Noh In-seong, single-handedly demonstrating a mature, evolved cheering culture (as of the early '90s).

And naturally, he was performing all of this from the seats directly above the home dugout.

"What's all that noise?"

"They've been rowdy for a while now. Did that many people really file in already?"

The sound carried, inevitably, straight into the ears of the players one level down.

"...That voice. No way."

"I swear I've heard that damned voice somewhere before..."

Among them were Suwon second baseman Kim Jin-il — the man who'd been fed one humiliation after another — and third baseman Song Hak-joo, who'd taken his beating, swallowed his insults, and promptly been traded away. Both of them began doubting their own ears. And when the two of them stepped out of the dugout and looked up into the stands—

"What are you looking at? Never seen a person before?"

'That son of a bitch' was looking down at them, legs crossed atop a fortress of snack food.

"""UAAAAAAGH---!!!"""

The game hadn't even started. The national anthem hadn't been sung. And yet a madman more dangerous than any drunk, fused together from pure malice, had already breached the stadium.

***

Gwangju's turn at bat.

The Gwangju Tigers' hitters were beyond exasperated.

"WOOOOO---!! Jeong Him-chan, you old geezer!! Why widen your lead that far?! You can stretch two steps and STILL die to a pickoff!"

"...ARGH! Blue! Will you make that lunatic shut his mouth already!"

The moment Gwangju first baseman Jeong Him-chan reached base, the thunderous heckling made it clear: one madman was hammering him with a nonstop barrage of abuse in a voice that carried to every corner of the park.

"How about that? Not a single curse word made it in. Technically spot-on, too?"

The problem was that there was precious little the umpires could actually do about it.

"...Hang on. Seriously?"

Seriously. Not one profanity — so what were they supposed to enforce?

No alcohol involved, and you couldn't exactly get into a shouting match with a fan. This was a ballpark.

"You lifted your lead two steps last game and died to a pickoff, remember? I was the first-base ump that day."

And the withering assessment of his baserunning was, infuriatingly, factually accurate. What could the man even say?

Oh, sure — sprinkle in an actual curse, or swear at an umpire, and they'd toss him without hesitation. But—

"Isn't that the kind of thing anyone's allowed to say? He IS a home-team fan, technically."

"A guy who showed up in a DOUBLES replica is a home-team fan?! He's an attention-seeking gremlin, is what he is!!"

I have no means of enforcement! wailed the umpire with the M-shaped receding hairline, whom Jeong Him-chan found himself hating with special fervor today.

Worse still, given Noh In-seong's current position — technically still a rostered player — Jeong Him-chan couldn't even march over and shut him up personally.

"Hey! You! Quiet down or I'll—"

"OH! Blue! BLUE! Violation of Rule 6.04(b), Clause 1! You're in a uniform!"

A player in uniform may not address spectators at any time — before, during, or after a game.

He got God-tier riled up and dished out all the taunting he wanted, and then hid behind 'I'm a spectator, you can't talk to me.'

"I'm a spectator RIGHT NOW, you idiot! What kind of dirty trick is this — what kind of depraved joy!"

"ARGH! That son of a...!! This is genuinely unbearable...!!"

The rule-abusing bastard proceeded to grind the Gwangju hitters' nerves into dust for the rest of the game.

***

After the fifth-inning stretch — and God only knew where he'd sourced them — the stadium cameras panned across the stands and found Noh In-seong and his pickets.

'Oh Yeon-seok is built for losing'. 'Run, Him-chan, run!''What are you staring at? First time seeing someone ranked higher than you?'

Waving his pickets, In-seong escalated into full psychological warfare — and the man even kept rhythm, swaying his signs to the beat without ever once singing the cheer songs.

Seeing the madman's face splashed across the jumbotron gave the Gwangju players a splitting headache.

They were already down 4-0 as it stood.

Winning the standings race meant taking care of the relatively weak Suwon club — that was the priority. But their hitters, the instant they reached base, were ghosts on the next base path, getting thrown out with supernatural consistency.

"Baseball is a battle of the mind."

Either be the shameless son of a bitch you always are, or get rattled from every direction and still rake. Fail to manage either, and you wobble. And when your timing slips even a hair, you roll over into a routine groundout.

Hitting is timing. Pitching is about stealing it. Wasn't that the old saying?

"What kind of lunatic ever imagines a player from a *different team* coming into the stadium ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to shake him down?"

Which meant this was a golden opportunity to wreck both teams at once. All the more reason to feed them an extra serving of grief.

"DIE, BOTH OF YOU---!! If we're being technical, YOU die FIRST---!!"

Perhaps the shout had earned its keep.

CRACK---!!

The opposing starter yanked mid-game — pure ecstasy for the home crowd.

Their own fall baseball was already dead and buried, but at least they got to sow a little red pepper powder into a rival's harvest. Dopamine was flowing nicely, and the Suwon fans raised their voices into their cheer songs.

"Surely after a shake-up like that, they won't go losing, right?"

He'd had his snacks at the park, and now it was time to head home and put rice away with whatever was left in the kitchen.

And so the golden brat, his work complete, headed home.

***

After the day Noh In-seong turned a ballpark inside out, the weekend passed, and Chuseok morning arrived.

Aside from some light exercise around the house, In-seong had rested completely — and his face looked better for it.

"Nothing special about today. It's not Lunar New Year, so no required bowing. Easy and comfortable, just how I like it."

Skritch—!

"In-seong, less chatting, more peeling. Finish that pear."

"Aigo, I started peeling this so *I* could eat it — why are there three plates out?"

Grumbling, In-seong kept peeling pears while watching the screen.

Neither the Grizzlies nor Gwangju had managed to open a gap on each other — so by that measure, Operation In-seong had been a complete success.

And yet, from the single most important place, news arrived of a losing streak.

"...Aigo, our team's got no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sh—"

After dropping two straight to Busan, the Doubles' winning-streak record run was put on pause.

He knew they'd rested half the roster, but losing to *Busan* of all teams? Nobody saw that coming...

"They do play great baseball, don't they, once they're mathematically out of the postseason?"

"...Oh."

His father's remark — less an observation than a law of nature — set In-seong's mind at ease, and he went back to peeling his pear.

"Eat your pear. Pear."

"Mm, this is sweet. Pears are sweet this year."

"Mm! Delicious. How much did we pay for these again?"

A family sitting in a circle, peeling fruit together and trading idle chatter — a small, ordinary happiness that the man he used to be couldn't have dreamed of.

Noh In-seong, granted a rare lazy Chuseok, savored the leisure for what it was.

And then, the next day—

"Huh?"

Staring at the box score of a team that had just been swept, Noh In-seong's sanity quietly left his body.