A Day Off (Denied)

The series against Busan ended with the two teams politely splitting one win apiece.

For starters, there was Jeong In-woo — the man who parked his starts at home — choosing that particular day to drive his sinker's condition straight into the dirt.

"Ah, you crazy bastard, I tell you to drop the sinker down and you just drop it into the ground."

Every time Jo In-soo trudged back to the plate caked in dirt, grumbling under his breath, Jeong In-woo might have... read the room.

"A catcher... complaining to a pitcher... who's basically heaven itself?!"

That's the kind of shameless garbage that would have come out of his mouth, so Jo In-soo swallowed it all for the sake of team harmony.

"Kuheok...!!"

What he got in return was a sinker that hit the dirt and bounced wildly, striking him in a very unfortunate location.

While Jo In-soo crawled off, tenderly cradling his backside as emergency treatment, Lim Jae-min pulled on the mask instead.

"Damn it, am I not in danger here too?"

He asked, acutely aware of his own mortality.

If that had been the only problem, they could have dragged the game into a slugfest ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and clawed out a win somehow. But swapping in a catcher who hit like a desk fan instead of an industrial blower weakened the cleanup spot on top of everything else.

"......"

"What are you looking at, punk. You think anyone's pitching to you straight if Noh In-seong isn't in the lineup? Get lost."

"No, damn it, I only had two hits yesterday!"

"Song Jin-wook. Intentional ball. Put him on first."

"...Yes sir."

Because here was the biggest reason of all: if the Doubles gave Noh In-seong a rest and the game turned into a slugfest, Song Jin-wook got filtered straight through the sieve. Thoroughly.

Busan could never pull off the insane maneuver of walking two baserunners on at once as long as Noh In-seong was standing there. But with him out of the picture, nobody was giving Song Jin-wook a fair fight.

Busan's front office pulled boneheaded moves on the regular, but their scouting and analysis department wasn't that stupid.

"The guy batting ahead of him is the real problem. Honestly, this one's a bug too. An oWAR of 8? Are you kidding me? Of course we're not pitching to him."

"And this bastard wasn't even around at the start of the season. Play a full year and he's pushing 9."

Having seen the numbers, the Busan roster made the obvious, prudent choice.

It was still early in the season, so his stamina and timing were both sharp, and yesterday he'd churned out a single and a double. Put Song Jin-wook in the box and Busan felt like they were being mugged.

"But if he walks, then it's the Doubles who get mugged. What was his baserunning grade again?"

"...A 30. And he bulked up this year, so it's probably even lower now."

A kid who was fast because there was nothing — no muscle where muscle belonged, like Noh In-seong — only got faster once the muscle came in. But a kid who was slow to begin with got even slower once he filled that space up.

Yesterday, Jang In-ho had sprinted with absolutely zero survival instinct, which was why they'd let him run. Weak teams will do anything for a single win.

Nine to seven. After a slugfest where both teams took turns slapping each other across the face with the guard down, the Doubles lost.

"Geez, this team is garbage at baseball."

Noh In-seong lay sprawled out, watching the game while tearing into chicken, his face full of grievances. Considering it was a day game, the sun was still blazing high and children were all around.

...At a playground. Lying on a bench.

Paying absolutely no mind to the shrieking of the little kids nearby, dressed in a hoodie and track pants.

...With only a bottle added to the scene, he'd have made a first-class homeless man.

The reason Noh In-seong ate outdoors, lying illegally on a public bench in full homeless-dining style, was simple.

"Tch. There's nowhere I can go and do anything anymore."

Thanks to his soaring popularity, anywhere he went, anyone in the crowd who liked baseball recognized him. Endless handshake requests came with the territory, but even so — a man has days when he wants to be alone.

Which is why he'd gotten takeout from the Bearded Art School Reject Chicken and was eating it in lonely silence at a playground.

"...What exactly was going through the owner's head when he named this place?"

Was he disappointed that the World War only ended at the second one? Noh In-seong mused as he tore into his chicken — and the playground gods chose that day to railroad him with a hostile environment.

It began with the wailing of a young boy who'd lost a card game.

"You're cheating! Waaah!!"

"No, you literally can't play that without paying the cost... why are you throwing a tantrum?!"

An upperclassman elementary schooler was floundering in the face of a much younger kid. These were modern times, after all — an era where technological progress had reached even card games.

No longer did children need to sit on street corners slapping ttakji tiles, or huddle in card shops to do battle.

But hologram-equipped gear that ran official rules was, at minimum, something you had to be an upperclassman to even get your hands on. A young child tasting hot, regulation hologram-rules for the first time — as opposed to neighborhood house rules — was now on the verge of tears.

"You put your card on the line, so the rule is the rule! Hand it over!"

"Waaah... I don't want to...!!"

"...Damn it, was our neighborhood a Battle City bracket or something? Why is the Anti-Rule so popular among elementary schoolers?"

While Noh In-seong happily spectated the miniature drama from his front-row seat, tearing into his chicken—

"Mister! This big kid is trying to take my card!"

The little brat deployed Underdogma and requested arbitration from Noh In-seong.

"BE! GONE!!! Have you not heard the proverb that nothing but piss awaits the defeated?! Vanish from my sight at once!"

You're supposed to beg a trustworthy adult for mediation, not a lunatic — and so the price of that terrible judgment was paid. Arbitrated, while experiencing the cold cruelty of reality and the sorrow of the defeated all at once.

Tug-of-war over a single card was, at most, a contest between little kids.

A baseball player who could clear the 170 km/h wall with two fingers and a favorable breeze was not.

"Yap."

"Ah!"

No matter how those two chicken-grease-stained fingers compared, a child's grip strength was no match at all.

And regardless of how young the combatants were, once a winner was decided, the loser had no grounds to complain.

Noh In-seong plucked the card away, snapped his fingers, and tossed it over to the victorious upperclassman.

"Thank you!"

"Now then, scram. Loser."

"WAAAAAH—!!"

Having taught a fleeing, sobbing boy the bitter taste of life, Noh In-seong reached back into the chicken box —

"Huh, I finished it. Weird, it really does taste good. Name aside."

His stomach still rumbled and the chicken was gone, so there was nothing for it.

And so Noh In-seong once more trudged his way back to the chicken joint.

"...He really does have a beard."

That was Noh In-seong's verdict upon seeing the old man hand over the fried chicken with a cap perched on top of said beard. With the man's own artwork hanging all over the shop, it seemed he really had once aspired to art school.

The moment he sat back down on the exact same bench with his second chicken and raised it for another bite, the smell of cigarette smoke began drifting his way.

"...Do these bastards genuinely not understand the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠concept of outdoor smoking bans?"

And it wasn't even a vape — actual tobacco, of all things.

Is the world truly in its end times, that these bastards are smoking in a sacred playground...

"...Come to think of it, back in my day the playground was holy ground for cigarettes too."

It had gradually faded away as CCTVs proliferated and society grew conscious of children's rights, but still...

While Noh In-seong sat dazed, drowning in nostalgia, the teenagers who'd been puffing away at 'playground bread' approached him.

"...Mister. Hey, mister! Yo!"

"Look how easygoing this guy is, man. Just ask him, he looks like he knows people."

"...No, I'd understand if you wanted me to buy you cigare—huh? Where have I seen this guy before?"

Tap.

A high schooler with a cigarette dangling from his lips swaggered up in front of Noh In-seong. And by pure chance, right at that moment the wind blew, and the ash from the kid's cigarette drifted down into the chicken box.

CRACK—!!

Noh In-seong slammed the chicken box straight into that doomed brat's face.

"Right. Damn it, come to think of it, there was a time I wore that uniform too, huh?"

The training gear jointly ordered by the baseball team of Noh In-seong's alma mater.

Transported back to his school days, Noh In-seong generously provided his juniors with an opportunity for protein intake.

"Damn it, does it not go down properly? You're ruining heaven-sent chicken with cigarettes? Are you people insane?"

""Yes sir!!""

In place of rising cigarette smoke, four teenagers knelt with their hands raised high toward the sky.

A bolt from the blue for students who'd merely wanted a proxy purchase of recreational goods — but what could they do?

--I knew I'd seen that uniform somewhere, and these bastards were polluting their direct senior's chicken with cigarette smoke?

It was nothing short of desecration, and Noh In-seong grabbed all four of them and let loose his fury.

There were quite a few schools with baseball teams near where Noh In-seong lived.

But after he produced a regular-season MVP, even more students flooded into the schools that were already powerhouses.

'My goodness, that school produced the greatest rookie in pro history!'

'Then maybe my boy could be the second coming of Noh In-seong...'

In any era, the educational zeal of parents never really changes.

For the sake of their children's success, parents will always go searching for the better school.

And at the very peak of that mountain sat this one.

"His salary... 1 billion won in only his second year?! Best in history?!"

"Oh my! We have to get him in!!!"

"Move! Right now, into that school district! The middle school's attached anyway, isn't it?!"

It was late January, when Noh In-seong's salary had been made public.

Even the talented players who survived the tryouts struggled to crack the starting lineup in that brutal competition. And in the midst of it, some students, lamenting their own lack of talent, sought stress relief after practice by...

"Drinking, smoking, whatever — fine. That's your business. But why in the hell are you dripping it into MY chicken?!"

Noh In-seong exploded all over again.

"Ack! We're sorry!"

"No, seriously — since when were Cloud Snacks legal in our school's baseball club, huh?!"

And with that, Noh In-seong served his juniors — four years his juniors, at that — a generous helping of bitter candy.

Whatever they did in their youth wasn't Noh In-seong's business, of course.

"But in that case, clearly we'll have to run a TeSt to see whether you're even allowed to breathe after pulling this kind of stunt..?!"

""""!!!!""""

His own juniors, lacking even basic fundamentals, committing a stunt like this — his alma mater's reputation would weep.

As payment, he declared he'd assign them 'additional training' — at the very school where he'd personally funded a night-training facility with his own donation.

"Is that all you've got?! What's the matter?! Running out of breath because of the cigarettes?!"

Thwack—!!

"GYAAAAH—!!"

Hell unfolded at every position, one after another.

In the outfield, balls landed only where you could catch them by chasing to the very last desperate inch. In the infield, grounders came bouncing in from spots where a single misjudgment meant the ball was already past you.

'My son isn't coming home — what exactly is the school doing to him?' — the parents' formal complaint?

"Your child is being personally watched over by me (without being killed)."

With that single statement from Noh In-seong, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the parents were won over — 'Wow! An Alumni Pro Player Invitation Event!'

Were they seriously going to choose telling the truth and a peaceful life instead?

They'd have to tell their mothers the story of how they'd been puffing Cloud Snacks and dropped cigarette ash into their senior's chicken.

The disaster they had summoned with their own hands now stared them dead in the face.

"Hmm. Your faces still look fairly fresh, though? We could roll you a bit longer."

The stress-saturated fungo he himself had endured at spring camp was now being spread far and wide to his juniors — this downward-flowing love of his continued until nine o'clock in the evening.

""Thank you for the food!!""

"There you go. Eat like pigs. The manager's going to run you ragged tomorrow anyway, I guarantee it."

The high school manager, suddenly summoned and forced to spectate the training session, surely found the whole affair absurd — but what could anyone do? Training minors without a guardian present is against the law, after all.

Noh In-seong had already booked the extra training schedule with the manager himself.

Which meant these little brats had no future ahead of them except one where they consumed heroic amounts of nutrition just to survive. That was the reason he'd dragged the run-ragged kids out and fed them good meat.

The one with the chicken box stamped into his face — Jung Hong-jin, was it?

That one especially.

'This bastard seems like the most useful of the lot. Keep an eye on him and work him over for years to come.'

'...? Why him?'

'His batted-ball reads were the best. None of that idiotic wasted motion, no hesitation delay.'

Of the three stages of chasing down a batted ball, the first stage — locating the ball — this kid simply did it, naturally.

'For a player like this, if you just develop his defense, getting signed to a pro team won't be a problem at all' — that was Noh In-seong's professional opinion.

In his school days, Noh In-seong had been the problem child who dumped a mountain of stress on everyone around him. And yet he went on to become the great player who brought more glory to his school than anyone else.

"Well, I suppose that means he has a good eye."

The high school manager nodded and folded the slip of paper into his pocket.

Quality center fielders were extraordinarily hard to develop, and in an era where anyone with decent gloves got shoved into the infield as fast as possible—

"Right. Eat plenty. Work even harder from now on. And no Cloud Snacks where I can see you."

"Ah, I won't smoke, sir."

It wasn't a bad deal, having a kid like this among his juniors.

Noh In-seong gazed with genuine pleasure at the fledgling who had wandered into 'his domain'.

...The fact that he'd written down a training volume that would make even pros weep was a separate matter entirely.

'If he's got the stamina to light up while doing that kind of crap, he'll reach the pros regardless...'

Or else he'd be forced to quit Cloud Snacks cold, whether he liked it or not, just to build the stamina.

And so benevolence, wearing the face of pure hatred, pounced upon Jung Hong-jin.

Two days later, on Tuesday, baseball resumed.

"Ugh, I'm exhausted."

"...Weren't you supposed to be on your day off?"

Noh In-seong showed up to the away game in Suwon with exhaustion written all over his face.

"A lot of things happened to me, okay. It was really rough."

In reality, a perfectly ordinary day off had abruptly transformed into a Visit Your Alma Mater Day.

To anyone who didn't know the backstory, it must have looked like what on earth did this bastard pull off this time?

CRACK—!!!

The ball the Suwon mercenary pitcher had thrown sailed far beyond the sky, and the moment was quickly forgotten.

Especially since the Doubles cruised to a comfortable win, it faded into the vague sense of ...oh, something like that happened, I guess.

"...Now what is this about?"

"They say he took a kid's card and gave it to a different kid?"

"You have to be careful with your words. This player sues people all the time."

That was the state of affairs — until the following week, as the Doubles rode a comfortable 6-2 stretch of momentum, when Noh In-seong's card arbitration aired on This Month's Fun CCTV Broadcast.

"...So. Why exactly has this advertising deal landed on MY desk?"

An unlucky man dies face-down in an empty plate, but a lucky one face-plants into a feast table. Noh In-seong had, once again, hit the jackpot on a massive advertising contract.

And not just any deal — a global one. An advertisement for an absolutely colossal card game played in nearly every country on Earth.

"......Is this for real?"

Noh In-seong began to suspect that the universe's spite and its favor shared the very same face.