The Avengers, Part 2
Noh In-seong was, fundamentally, a man with a very firm line drawn between 'me' and 'everyone else.'
Those inside his circle could get away with almost any rudeness — he'd just laugh it off.
But if some outsider suddenly started grinding beans right in front of him without asking? Laid a hand on his friend?
"Straight to the fingers. Just like that."
"Wha—?! Hey! You're the one who shattered the ice!"
"Ah, that's not on me. The ice was simply made of inferior material."
"Hear ye, hear ye! The madman has been defeated! Time to hammer his forehead with the ice mallets!"
"Ow, you little— let go of me...!!"
That said, entirely separate from all that, Noh In-seong had committed a genuine wrong this time.
What kind of lunatic smashes the ice so hard it breaks in a game of 'Ice Breaker'?
And so, out of the bare minimum of conscience, he was quietly serving his time as the victim.
But not a single soul stepped forward to denounce In-seong for raising a ruckus and ruining the peace.
Because that man wouldn't be seeing action for a while, thanks to yesterday's collision.
'...I'm dead. Actually dead.'
Jo In-soo — Noh In-seong's primary stopper — had gone down in the previous day's game.
The player collision had broken out on one of In-seong's mandatory full rest days.
Guaranteed rest days after every start were a recovery measure to keep In-seong's body in one piece.
It had become such an accepted fact of life by now that the Doubles simply prepared for the Superstars series without him.
"Well, it's not like those guys upgraded their roster — they couldn't even land a single FA."
That was Jeong Im-taek's thinking: we'll be fine without him, surely.
If this were a fight settled purely through 'baseball,' he'd have been absolutely right.
The problem was that the Superstars had been taking losses to the Doubles nonstop since last year.
Sure, they'd played winter exhibition games and maintained a certain level of exchange since then —
but that didn't mean none of their various grudges had festered in the meantime.
Plenty of old, sour feelings still lingered between the two clubs.
The FA market had already frozen solid thanks to the Doubles, leaving the Superstars with no meaningful upgrade over last year's squad.
And on top of that, their catcher — mediocre numbers or not — had been outright stolen by Busan.
"Damn it. Who knew the C-grade tag he got for those lousy numbers would come back and bite us like this."
The front office had assumed, of course he'll re-sign with us! — and gotten burned, right as Busan found itself in the grip of a great catcher drought.
The Superstars' management was already in a foul mood.
'That cursed bastard's not here either. Finally, a day I can play some relaxed baseball.'
'One insufferable prick, and we've had to play scared every single game because of him.'
That was the stress the Superstars had been carrying into every game, trembling in fear day after day.
And even with Noh In-seong absent —
"I said the ball slipped out of my hand?! I'm sorry! It was a mistake, I swear—"
"You son of a—!!!"
— one starting pitcher's crime of not controlling his pitches especially well lit the fuse.
In the bench clearing that followed, with the opposing foreign players charging over in a rage,
Jo In-soo — who had thrown himself in front of the starting pitcher to shield him — took the damage.
Thankfully, the time he bought let every Doubles player pour out onto the field before the pitcher got hurt, averting a direct beatdown.
"Hmm... I'd say at least a month of rest and recovery."
The catcher who had been knocked flat blocking his way — blocking and blocking and blocking — had his preexisting conditions detonate all at once.
His back twanged mid-block, and when he hit the turf, his already-troubled knee exchanged a deep kiss with the ground.
But those were mere bruises. The worst injury was something else entirely.
"I'm sorry — how does a grown man rupture his hemorrhoids just falling on his ass?"
"In-soo Hyung's been riding a donut cushion on the team bus for ages. This wasn't exactly day one."
"So that's my future... I'm s-s-scared."
Hemorrhoids. A relapse of his anal condition.
"Agh... it hurts so bad...!!"
"If we do not perform the procedure immediately, you may experience far greater suffering going forward."
The hospital where Jo In-soo was admitted was a general medical center, but the doctor performing his surgery came from the proctology department.
Facing a physician who would be examining that particular region of him, he chose hospitalization through gritted tears.
But all the reporters caught wind of was that he'd been hospitalized.
Like blind men touching an elephant, each article grasped only one fragment of the whole story.
"Hey! Their catcher's out injured!"
"What?! Then the bench clearing means we won! Sound the trumpets!"
The Superstars, who had been on the receiving end for so long, read those articles and rejoiced.
"...This is nothing like the stories I've heard? I was told this place was basically hell."
"It ended like this because neither the captain nor that little brat sitting out today was around... let's just eat."
"Yeah. This barbecue actually slaps. And here I heard team dinners with this club were supposed to be miserable..."
The two foreign players, dumbfounded to find a bench clearing that wasn't the catastrophe-sized disaster they'd been warned about,
were dragged off to the team dinner without the faintest idea what had just happened, and ate their meat in obedient silence.
"Noh In-seong! What are your thoughts on yesterday's bench clearing!"
"Noh In-seong! Over here, please!"
"What will you do if an intentional hit-by-pitch comes!"
Jamsil was a hive of noise before first pitch.
Between yesterday's incident and the fact that the man returning today had himself been drilled by a deliberate pitch last time, the press had every reason to swarm.
Haters and fanboys aside, the Superstars were the kind of club that traveled with a pack of reporters in tow.
But In-seong couldn't have cared less. It was all too much of a hassle—
"Noh In-seong! The Superstars say they're not afraid of bench clearings anymore!"
"What?! Those bastards have lost their goddamn minds!"
The moment hassle lost to irritation and fury, the reporters came running with smiles on their faces.
They'd successfully gotten under his skin. Time to collect their rEWard.
"What will you do if they throw at you on purpose today!"
"You think they'd dare, knowing what I'd do about it? Those guys are all cowardly little bastards — they'll flinch."
A direct insult to the opposing team and their starting pitcher.
"Yesterday, when their strong, combat-trained foreign mercenaries overwhelmed the Doubles, how did that feel?"
"For trained fighters to threaten a weak, defenseless person like me... ooh, how terrifying."
In-seong put on an exaggerated expression of fear — a performance obvious enough for anyone to see through.
"Don't think that just because you've trained in martial arts, you get to ignore basic weight classes."
With that, In-seong flashed a wide grin and wrapped up the interview.
'Sure, you learned techniques designed to hurt people...'
--but my mindset for beating you down operates on a completely different level.
Noh In-seong had never needed anything so refined as 'efficient techniques for hurting people.'
"Techniques learned to beat people down? That's the path of the strong! A road nothing like mine, a mere weakling!"
His fundamental way of thinking was simply built different.
Whether In-seong thought so or not, words without feet still travel well past a thousand li.
"Does this bastard learn nothing from watching yesterday's bench clearing?! Look at this!"
The clubhouse was hardly four hundred kilometers away, and the words reached the Superstars before first pitch.
Yesterday's triumph, washing away years of accumulated humiliation.
Having finally scrubbed away a long stretch of disgrace with yesterday's brawl, the Superstars were —
"Those bastards! After fighting them yesterday, they're honestly nothing special!"
"Even if Noh In-seong plays, wouldn't our mercenaries stop him no problem?"
— drunk on confidence with absolutely no foundation.
After taking a beating for so long, it felt like they'd finally landed one clean hit of their own.
Sending the opposing starting catcher off on the injured list felt like cold cider poured over a mouthful of dry, suffocating sweet potato.
"Seriously, do they not realize they can't touch us anymore? Thinking about it, I'm actually pissed!"
"Honestly, yesterday only happened because they threw the ball badly in the first place..."
"Huh. That's a fair point, actually."
And into all of this, In-seong rang the opening bell. Every last Superstars player was boiling mad.
But the angriest man of them all —
"...This son of a bitch has lost it!"
— was the one man to whom both of In-seong's interview insults applied simultaneously.
'A cowardly bastard who learned martial arts and has the character of a sewer drain.' Zeke Jake 'GG' Paul.
His face shifted colors like a traffic-light candy, red to green to red again.
So the angry starting pitcher GG Paul held a grudge against the leadoff hitter Noh In-seong —
but picking a fight out of nowhere in the opening innings would create problems with his pitch count.
'Consider yourself lucky. At least you won't be taking one in the back in your first at-bat...'
GG Paul suppressed his fury and went into his windup.
"...Still, it's up and in. The bastard'll be quaking a little at least."
He buried a four-seam fastball deep on the inside corner.
The price of failing to notice that In-seong had been quietly shifting his body toward first base the whole time—
CRACK—!!
It left the yard. Decisively.
'I did say my piece before the game, so of course one inside brush pitch was coming.'
The truly dangerous bastard is the kind who lays his traps before the game even starts.
The ball In-seong had flicked away so casually sailed over the fence just as casually.
"...You're not RUNNING?! RUN! RUN!"
And watching a batter stand in the box admiring the ball until it actually cleared the fence,
GG Paul's blood pressure and voice volume rose in perfect unison.
"What are you looking at, you moron?"
In-seong shuffled around the bases like a caterpillar, flung his bat aside without ceremony,
and took a leisurely stroll around the diamond, savoring the pitcher's face as it changed colors at every bag.
His touch of home plate even came with a full spin move.
Around and around and around... watching the spinning top that was Noh In-seong, GG Paul prayed this was all a dream.
"Woo, I'm getting dizzy."
"You absolute maniac...!!"
The In-seong top spun a few more rotations before stopping short from a wave of nausea, then wobbled into the dugout.
"...That's it, I'm going to kill that son of a—!!"
"Whoa! Hold it! Hold it! Wait for your next chance! If you don't eat these innings efficiently, you're finished!"
The taunting was enough that his own catcher, Song Jin-soo, scrambled up the mound in a desperate bid to calm him down.
The atmosphere at Jamsil turned gravely turbulent from the very first inning.
Naturally, an atmosphere like that bleeds straight into the game itself.
In the 2nd inning, a pitch came flying near the head of Nicholas, batting sixth.
"HEY!"
"What, problem?!"
One Problem? and Nicholas went quiet again.
Considering what his own keystone partner had pulled earlier, this much was practically a courtesy.
'This lunatic. Forget a keystone — is he planning to erect a tombstone in front of me?'
The shortstop himself was entertaining rather different thoughts about not being the one thrown at.
'Ah, so that's the type he is. In that case, I should return the favor at my next at-bat.'
There was zero chance the man cursing and gritting his teeth through the at-bat heard a word of it.
"Argh! Damn bastard!"
Because of the 150 km/h four-seamer that had caught him, Nicholas spent the rest of the inning hiding the pain in his back —
and once the half ended, he had to slather on spray-on painkiller in thick, guilty layers.
And then came the at-bat everyone had been dreading: Noh In-seong, second time up.
"You son of a bitch. I've been waiting to get you, too."
It was the 3rd inning already. The conversation had happened; the manager had tacitly signed off, and the bullpen was warming.
All GG Paul had to do was jam a baseball into that cursed bastard's back on the mound, then drive a fist into his face.
The pitcher went into his windup to carry out the final duty of his day —
and Noh In-seong charged the mound with absolutely no intention of waiting.
"You throw, that's aggravated assault! In the time it takes that ball to hit the ground, you're a dead man!"
The infielders scrambled up to cut him off, and GG Paul tore at his glove to get it off —
"Damn it, the ball's jammed in it—!!"
He panicked. He had never imagined something like this could happen.
But Noh In-seong is a quick man. He was already at GG Paul's side.
The pitcher couldn't raise a guard with the glove stuck on his hand, and In-seong put his hardened fingers to work on that defenseless face.
"Facial massage! Relieves eye fatigue!"
"AAAARGH—!!"
Four furrows raked straight down from his eyes to his jaw, with the strength of a grizzly bear.
Clutching his face, GG Paul was temporarily neutralized, rolling across the mound dirt.
Of course, the Superstars players converged on the mound to defend their day's starting pitcher —
and In-seong withdrew from it, off in search of his next objective. Another mercenary.
He swept his gaze across the field. Today's target. Located.
"Found you. You absolute dog."
Victor Emenike saw In-seong charging at him full tilt and dropped into his stance.
'Haha, you idiot. You don't know I'm a trained wrestler?'
He'd absorb one punch. Take it while executing a takedown, and the fight would go to the ground.
Then his opponent would be bound in his vice and squeezed until utterly exhausted, forced to roll around writhing to his heart's discontent.
'And once that happens, you're finished. I'll keep you tied up and torment you all day long.'
Confident, he lowered his stance, ready to receive the punch aimed at his face —
"Are you brain-dead? You thought I'd forgive you for something like that?"
The sensation of his nose being flattened in real time washed over him.
A scenario that had never once entered the calculations of a baseball player, let alone a wrestler:
Noh In-seong went airborne and drove his left knee directly into his opponent's face.
The 'Ugly Face' Flying Knee Kick — true to its name, a technique for performing facial reconstruction.
Two teeth tumbled from Victor's mouth along with a spray of blood.
Meanwhile, the pitcher — sufficiently recovered from the stun of having his face raked —
finally peeled his eyes open, and GG Paul whipped his head around, scanning the field.
"...Where's that bastard?! Where is he!"
Green grass, black uniforms, and red... red?!
His coworker Victor lay collapsed on the ground, blood streaming from his mouth —
and standing on top of him was one man.
Noh In-seong waggled two fingers in his direction — then folded one down,
and extended the remaining finger, straight and true, right at him.
Having just received the most powerful profanity in existence, there was no force on earth that could make him swallow it.
"You bastard, I'll—!"
"Whoa?! GG! GG! Where do you think you're going! GG!"
Naturally, swallowing this would make him not a man, never mind a ballplayer.
GG Paul squared up and charged.
The stunned Superstars players around him surged in to escort GG —
"Everyone! Take out anyone heading toward In-seong! That guy did boxing, remember!"
"We can't beat them, but we can block bastards like that one!"
And there, waiting once again, stood the K-bench-clearing-style human wall.
One on one.
In the eyes of the boxer GG Paul, In-seong came into view.
Charging at each other head-on, In-seong's whole body wound up in a huge arc.
A full-body swing. Every instinct screamed haymaker.
Boxing or not, it was a wild windmill punch thrown by novices hoping to land one big shot.
'Haha, you amateur. You think that lands on a boxer?!'
Duck under it, answer with a body shot, then grind his face into paste...!
His years of drilled defensive posture fired automatically.
And the next movement was... the next movement was...?
'What. Why is this bastard just staying wound up and coming straight in?'
He'd barely registered his own bewilderment when—
The helmet never left his head, defending it. The wound-up posture left precious few places to land a punch.
And through it all, In-seong's acceleration — faster than a maddened bull —
KWAANG—!!!
"GUHAAAAGH—!!"
— delivered the full force of the impact straight into GG Paul's body.
"Forget punches — you ever heard of a body check?"
Who bench clears with boxing, anyway, when there are this many weapons to choose from?
Meanwhile, GG Paul — sent skidding backward by the collision of body on body — shifted his weight forward.
The momentum that had carried him away braked hard, and he stopped hunched over at the waist.
His body refused to obey after the shock, but his consciousness was still there.
'Heugh... heugh... feels like I got hit by a car.'
Legs gone rubbery, hands tingling — it felt like being knocked down cold. He fought to cling to consciousness,
and the moment he'd managed to claw some of it back, a voice came from behind him.
"Hey, GG Paul. It's Noh In-seong. You know why I'm here, right?"
The voice of a man who would make the Grim Reaper himself blanch.
'Ah, damn it — someone's behind me, and they mean me harm.'
Any boxer in this position, naturally, thinks of one thing: the rabbit punch.
A strike to the neck or the back of the head. Everything from concussion to death.
GG Paul hurriedly raised both hands to shield the back of his skull.
Because no one knew what this damned amateur might do, his boxer-forged instincts recalled the single most lethal thing in his sport—
"Beep. Wrong answer."
THWAAACK—!!
"GUH... GUHAAAAARGH—!!!"
The most dangerous spot on a man is not the head.
A boxer on his knees, guarding his head — excellent judgment.
But legs spread wide with everything in between left completely unguarded? That is an outstanding weakness.
Noh In-seong's full swing arced cleanly into the exposed territory.
After an interminable age of pain and regret came his allotted time of unconsciousness and foam.
Ptooey—!
"Don't you ever get cute with our team again."
Ah, right. Though you might have some trouble functioning as a man from now on?
"Look into joining a softball team. No idea if they take trans players these days, but hey."
Noh In-seong spat at GG Paul and was leisurely escorted off the field.
Of course, "escorted" was generous — he simply walked off under his own power, and the umpire declared the ejection afterward.
However much you sublimate violence into the domain of martial art,
the world at large does not call it 'combat.'
Noh In-seong had won the bench clearing using countless tactics 'applauded in war.'
Naturally, a five-game suspension and a ten-million-won fine came bundled with the victory.
"Five games isn't a bad suspension, and I make good money these days anyway?"
He couldn't have cared less. He'd collected suspensions plenty of times even as a rookie.
And sure, condemnation and criticism poured down on him from every direction.
"Yeah, can't heeear you~"
Noh In-seong was simply not a man who bothered with the pathetic whining of defeated losers calling him a coward.
The day after his ejection, In-seong sat for an interview.
"GG Paul says that Noh In-seong is... uh, 'not even a man' for striking his... groin..."
"'Man'? Isn't he officially not a man anymore, as of now? I've never once taken a shot to the groin like that."
He had no interest in the whimpering of a man who'd just taken one in a deeply unfortunate place — sounded less like an athlete and more like a gender reassignment surgery patient complaining about post-op pain.
"What about... guilt of conscience...?"
"Don't have any? Look, put bluntly — they're the ones who trained in martial arts and tried to use it against someone who never learned any. Isn't that grounds for aggravated penalties? A trained fighter attacking a novice!"
Isn't that an aggravated assault charge waiting to happen? A black belt ganging up on a beginner!
"A humble, ordinary athlete like myself simply engaged in a street fight against such thoroughly trained martial artists."
Never mind that against the wrestler, unwilling to go down, he'd dealt out everything from fractured jawbone to teeth via a flying knee.
Then against the boxer who came next: face-rake, body check, low blow. A full combo.
'...Unbelievably, didn't he do nothing but target each sport's exact weakness?'
'Filthy bastard. At that level he'd excel if he actually took formal lessons — the fact that he doesn't is a choice.'
The reporters, staring at the shameless spectacle, lost their grip on reality.
"Until next time then, you martial artists."
Next time, I'll answer you with even more aggressive and far more serious tactics.
With that, the Foul King, Noh In-seong, grinned his crooked grin and ended the interview.
And from that moment on, a rather long vacation awaited him.