127. The Right to Be Arrogant

With a holiday on his hands, Noh In-seong devoted himself, for the first time in a while, to his other profession.

"Augh, man. Feels like forever since I've gone live, huh?"

Which is to say, he'd turned on his personal stream. There was no need to rush back into baseball yet. He could rest a little longer, take his time with fundamentals, and only start practicing once everyone else's playoffs were underway. In fact, every single player on the Doubles was currently soaked in rest, healing their worn-out bodies as they spoke.

'In-seong, we're going to take it easy, so for the love of god, please stay out of controversy — or out of crime.'

'Can't guarantee the first one, but I'll work real hard on the second.'

You little punk—! And with that outburst, Jo In-soo departed for his scheduled knee checkup, and for the first time in an eternity, the Doubles vanished from Jamsil.

"My real job is always slacking off and raising hell, and baseball's the side gig... no wait, that's not right."

Intense content was off the table for a stream, and he had to work out in the evening anyway, so it inevitably had to be a talk-and-chat broadcast. He simply read a fan cafe post from a supporter word for word — and the viewers loved it.

Among the viewers was, incidentally, one particular troublemaker who had recently landed a job in "water quality management."

"Get out, you punk... agh, right, this punk has manager permissions now, so I can't even ban him."

Of all people, the troublemaker held the power — and was using it to smear In-seong. From In-seong's perspective, this was a result he had never anticipated. He'd figured that if the guy was going to be an enemy anyway, he might as well make him an ally, so he'd handed over the manager permissions and the editor role — and now the lunatic spent every single day of the stream fratkilling his own boss. Truly a piece of work.

"Hey! I sat you there so you could FILTER OUT the chats that maliciously or falsely smear me!"

"......"

They say a person who has experienced death once is changed forever. What Noh In-seong had failed to account for was that a lunatic who experiences death becomes twice the lunatic.

Meanwhile, as Noh In-seong soldiered on with his broadcast against his manager's nonsense —

One viewer, apparently, had flung a hefty sum with what looked like an instruction: watch this video.

"Oh, sure, thanks a ton for the big donation. All donated amounts go straight to personal use!"

A viewer had handed Noh In-seong a tidy financial windfall — and made him watch a video. It was an ordinary sports Nertube channel, the kind that brings guests on to share reactions and inner feelings. This week's theme: the Tiebreaker Special. They'd gathered fans of both teams — the Grizzlies and Gwangju — and apparently filmed them reacting live to the game.

And then, the moment In-seong's face appeared on the stadium screen — the moment both fanbases' expressions contorted — he'd raised a sign, completely ignoring the crowd's jeers, while munching on chicken.

"This player has no respect for the sport of baseball!"

BANG!

There he was on that screen: a male celebrity, seething, slamming his desk.

"What the heck. That's me? God, look at that garbage resolution."

The man raging on screen didn't faze him in the slightest; the pixel quality of his own image did. Which was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠impressive, really. But to the viewers, the truly astonishing part was that someone of celebrity status had publicly attacked Noh In-seong on a mass media platform.

Normally, when someone reached Noh In-seong's level, the tables turned the other way — whatever he said was what left the opposing celebrity in tatters. It was, after all, the stretch of the season where a resident troublemaker had nothing to do but film his personal stream and recharge his stamina.

And yet, of all things, someone had coincidentally gone and made Noh In-seong watch this video?

"...At this point, you seem to have a phenomenal amount of grievance against that channel, don't you?"

Or else — were you one of the people hoping I'd show up on it?

Noh In-seong thrilled at the situation that had materialized out of nowhere: a savory bit of fun — and potentially, revenue.

"Hold on. Let's go leave a few comments, shall we?"

Once the water was in, the turbine started spinning with true lunatic momentum.

Even before the "Tiebreaker Teabagging," fans declaring themselves openly — so-called admirers posting under their real accounts — had always been a thing. I mean, look at what he does. How could another team possibly like him? To the Doubles, "that In-seong" is our In-seong. To everyone else, he's "that In-seong of yours — get him under control."

If he were some scrub, fair enough, whatever. But this was:

"A human being who, in a single rookie year, is already rewriting the history of Korean baseball however he damn well pleases."

When a historically great player wrecks other teams, the wreckage lands even harder in the history books.

"I'm telling you, we ARE disciplining him properly!"

"Don't feed me that garbage! You're accommodating that punk so his record streak can keep going, aren't you?!"

The baseball association was one of the biggest victims of all. Of course, thanks to In-seong, the influx of new fans had grown enormously, so they weren't exactly in a bad mood about it.

'But we did hand down proper punishments. With all the other teams watching, how could we not?'

'And for the record, we're not exactly grateful either — that one guy has forced us to rewrite how many rules?'

They were among the ones getting punched, too, so it was maddening that nobody seemed willing to acknowledge it.

The panel incident was, in truth, just a single pinhole in an overinflated balloon. The moment came — now! — and everyone piled on, but the grievances had been accumulating for a long, long time.

"Since when did this become daily life in Korean baseball? As far as I'm aware, it was last September!"

Ever since In-seong's draft, there had been endless trouble, incidents, bench clearings. These minor(?) affairs had slowly festered like an abscess — and with this latest event, everything everyone had been swallowing erupted at once. The two fanbases with the most firepower — the Seoul Grizzlies and the Gwangju Tigers — were furious, and the content producers, sensing an opportunity, zeroed in on the common denominator of both: Noh In-seong. And appearing amid the chaos was that male celebrity guest who'd hammered the table.

The moment had survived as a screencap, become a meme circulating far and wide — a situation that absolutely could not be left unstirred.

"This is part two! Let's pump out the sequel content right now!"

The click-count phantoms scrambled desperately, and within a day had slapped together a hastily planned, ramshackle debate-format program. 'Korean Baseball: Entertainment or Etiquette?' was now broadcasting live.

"The team I've cheered for since I was a little kid is nothing but a plaything to that player!"

BANG!

Just as the male celebrity in the Gwangju uniform, unable to contain his fury, was pressing his argument — the content producer strolled into the studio, grinning ear to ear.

"Well, well — someone in our live chat just said, 'Let's see Noh In-seong come say it to our faces.'"

"...Oh."

And so, in real time, the lunatic made contact with them. The hastily assembled debate program — 'Defeat Noh In-seong' — had suddenly begun.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, viewers. We greet you with a dignified, high-class debate program."

"...Weren't you people slamming your desks about thirty seconds ago?"

"Now, now, Player Noh In-seong. Please maintain some decorum."

For a moment, amid the slapdash production, the existing guests — with no idea what was happening — briefly lost their composure. But this was a man who had survived the cutthroat entertainment industry; he swiftly collected himself. 'Stay focused. However this goes, show them the most rational, logical version of yourself!'

--This is the golden opportunity to change my public image!

"...Please stop treating our team like a toy this instant — and apologize!"

The male celebrity lambasted In-seong's avatar in a fury. But the man on the other side was a lunatic. You could raise a hand to him, sure — but the moment he opened his mouth, there was no winning. The pocket-sized In-seong, joining the debate via hologram, served up a spicy dose of reality:

"...I'm sorry — what?"

The SD-sized Noh In-seong hologram was tiny — but the menace came through at one hundred percent. The Nertube live broadcast, originally destined to become a hastily built "profanity-prevention temporary program" disguised as a debate, did not take long at all to transform into a highlights reel of Noh In-seong's verbal carnage.

"Th...that said, aren't we all colleagues in the same industry, ultimately? Why go out of your way to stoke conflict?"

It was confirmed: his understanding of baseball's senior-junior culture existed on a completely different planet.

"But you've been going around pressing 'like' on all the photos of the past legends!"

It was also confirmed that if any of them un-retired and came back, he would happily tell them to their faces, 'Die already, old man!'

"...Then are you planning to keep this mindset for your entire career in Korea? Is that right? Is this for real?"

Against their hollow final argument, a massive plot grenade rolled out on every possible front.

"Besides — the right to decide that happens to be in my hands right now, doesn't it?"

"Yep. Korean baseball, whatever else — until next season starts, it's basically mine."

Until now, no one had ever ascended to become the league's unquestioned dominator. Whenever someone charged to the front to rule an era, someone always emerged to stop them. Whenever someone proved peerless at a position, the front seat was granted — but a chaser always emerged.

"Right now — in this league where I play — is there a single situation where that's possible?"

Same position — fielding? No. As a hitter — batting? No. As a pitcher — pitching? No. And this was with countless missed games on his record; the raw stats had still piled up to that height. So long as nothing happened — so long as that arrogant rookie didn't somehow eat an entire lost season next year — the man could seize the league and bend it at will. A dominator.

"In the past, no matter how overwhelming the pitcher, a number two always existed. No matter how overwhelming the hitter, there was always a number two."

In that one respect, I'm in a situation where there is no runner-up waiting to chase me down.

'The closest thing... that Song guy?'

But Song's on my team, and his fielding is straight-up hopeless. Probably won't happen.

"At least this year, I was Korean baseball. Admit it."

Noh In-seong flashed a wide grin and delivered his closing remarks.

"Rookies of next year, listen up and remember this well. Ours is the only team where you can even see a sprout of opportunity, so you'd better bust your asses."

--If that stings, then do it yourselves. Grind hard and raise your draft stock. Good luck.

Beep!

Noh In-seong blew every attendee's avatar to pieces and ended the broadcast.

"...AAAARGH!!! I couldn't get out a single word! Unbelievable!"

The heartbroken celebrity did, in the end, get his image changed.

'...He fights so hard, but he's the type of character who dies to overwhelming force...'

The image was good. The impact was good. But in exchange, his screen time had shrunk considerably — that was the drawback he'd earned. Famous now as the "loses-gallantly-but-fights-hard" character, the road to true stardom as an actor grew that much longer.

Still — light always finds its way eventually, they say. If he just kept clinging on stubbornly...

Somewhere down the road. Who knows? Maybe he'd take home an award overseas or something.

That was a matter for the future.

And at precisely the same moment —

"It's okay—! It's okay—! It's okay—!"

[The fans are weeping even as they chant 'It's okay'... Yes. It was a truly fine ballgame.]

Eight to seven. Both sides had given absolutely everything to beat the other. But the young Phoenix, outmatched in weight class, could not slay the Tiger and crumbled back into ash. Their brilliant ace had gutted out seven innings, and their bats had picked apart the weary Tigers with patient, surgical precision — but in the end, it came down to bullpen depth, and the still-young pitchers let their chances slip agonizingly away.

As the fans shed their tears for the sake of a next year that would be bigger and stronger, the team bowed out of fall baseball with a bitter taste in their mouths.

"Next year, we finish building this team — and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠aim even higher."

The words from the Daejeon front office only echoed, hollow, through their empty skybox.