This Place Makes Damn Good Dumplings (Part 1)

A home run record that was a living, breathing freak of nature. Two grand slams off ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a single man — 'Hanmandu,' as the fans were already calling it — and a 15–5 humiliation. The Superstars had, quite naturally, been reduced to the entire city's punchline by nightfall.

"We begin with sports news. A truly historic record in pro baseball today, wouldn't you say? Two grand slams in a single game!"

Every major terrestrial network led with it on the nine o'clock news, and even the Nertube Shorts channels, who cared for nothing but view counts, got in on the act.

"What you're seeing happened in June of 2052, at Jamsil Dome..."

Of course, next to an actual dumpling restaurant, all of these were frozen-dumpling knockoffs. Missing the single crucial precondition — that it all had to happen within one inning — it was a record destined to stay hot for about a month before fading away.

"...A month is short?"

Lim Jae-min, who had just scooped himself a heap of ramyeon noodles and dumplings, stared at Noh In-seong in disbelief.

"No, the opposite. We should be praising the dynamism of modern society, where a record this absurd runs its course in a single month."

Noh In-seong rebutted him with total calm.

Loading the bases was hard enough on its own. Then you had to let a grand slam fly, face the next batter on the mound, and — with the game all but conceded — absorb the finishing blow on top of it. That was the kind of record this was.

As for the man who'd actually set it — Song Jin-wook couldn't have cared less about any of that.

"What would you know? I'm telling you, I can't see a damn thing right now. If it were this exact moment, I could hit a homer off you."

He'd said that at the budae-jjigae joint they'd hit up to celebrate the win. Sheer, unhinged confidence — laced with desperation and obsession.

Money. Incentives. The future of his unborn child. This was Song Jin-wook with his eyes flipped completely inside out, a beast with nothing left but the primal instinct to guard its own den, baring its teeth at anything that came close.

"...Well, the odds would be low. But yeah, he probably could."

Noh In-seong nodded with a resigned look on his face.

His eyes have gone. Good lord — who knew a man could turn into this much of a lunatic just from finding out he's having a kid.

Whatever he'd been tapping into in celebration of fatherhood had left his swing with holes drilled clean through it.

"If he pulls a stunt like this on the FA market, Japan or the States, teams will show up hauling sacks of cash...?"

Given one more at-bat, this was a man who might have hit yet another homer. And then it probably would have stood as the first record of its kind in the entire ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠history of the sport.

His usual idiocy nowhere in evidence, replaced by sheer tenacity — today's MVP of the day, Song Jin-wook, 4-for-4 with 2 home runs and 9 RBIs, a perfect stat line, demolished his budae-jjigae.

"Eat up. It's all-you-can-refill anyway."

It was a meal bought by the biggest earner at the table, and yet Noh In-seong, in some baffling corner of his soul, had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chosen a stingy man's restaurant.

"Agh, you make all that money and you still insist on places where even the extra sides come free."

Song Jin-wook grumbled — but the moment a broth-soaked dumpling stuffed his mouth, he went quiet.

Tied for the most RBIs in a single game in league history. Song Jin-wook, enjoying the happiest day of his baseball life, had his grumbling forcibly suppressed by a scorched mouth.

Meanwhile — what about the pitcher on the receiving end of all those homers that day?

"What do you think? I seriously considered quitting baseball. You would too, right?"

"I imagine so. I just hope this doesn't turn into a slump... Hang in there, Soo Byung-jin!"

This was a situation where even the baseball channels, normally scrupulously neutral about players, felt obliged to send encouragement.

Noh In-seong hadn't earned his reputation for sadistic baseball for nothing.

Lifting his plate of dumplings, Noh In-seong began his explanation to Lim Jae-min.

"Just by holding this record, you get stuck with 'Dumpling' as a nickname for life, and fans Photoshop you into the weirdest memes..."

A lifelong laughingstock. And what if the pitcher who took the beating went on to become a legend of the game someday?

Then this becomes his defining gag — every single year on the anniversary, the memes come crawling back out of the woodwork.

"And what about the guy who hit the homers?"

"What else? The worst perpetrator in the history of the sport."

"Fwut—!!"

...Ugh. Disgusting. Chew with your mouth closed at least, you animal.

Forget the rest of the season — with an ordinary mental constitution, there was no way you took a record like that and walked away without months of trauma. Pitchers started tossing deliberate balls to dodge home runs. Their control could fall apart entirely.

When Soo Byung-jin trudged off the mound, head bowed, tears streaming — that was why the coaches had sprinted out in such a panic to salvage the kid's psyche.

They'd only played the Superstars once, and it was already looking grim.

They finished the budae-jjigae and headed their separate ways home — but as Noh In-seong walked, something stirred in him, born of long years of professional experience. A sense for insane ballgames, too underdeveloped to exist in those two youngsters he'd just parted with.

"...Something's... happening."

A batting lineup on fire. Pitchers detonating on the mound. Records that would outlive the team's own collapse.

Those records seemed to be parting the curtain, showing Noh In-seong a glimpse of some utterly deranged future.

Meanwhile, the people whose beloved team had just been plastered across the nine o'clock sports segment were furious.

Superstars fans were burning up the internet with cries of 'What in the hell is this insane baseball?!' So they'd finally purged the trash front office, and now the manager they'd been left with was a problem too?!

Something that had happened back when his own father was the one taking the beating. An empathy that crossed generations — which, to the fans themselves, was an empathy of absolutely no use whatsoever.

Praying nobody would rub any more salt into the raw wound, they limped through the next day on a steady diet of cursing the manager.

"...Whew. Okay. After the shitshow yesterday, today should at least be a game where we drink and hurl insults in peace, right?"

Baseball fans are, by definition, the people who — even after the rout of the century — switch the screen back on while cursing their lungs out. Some gathered up their crews and headed to the pub. Some cracked open beers at home. Some marched straight to the ballpark, prepared to deliver their abuse in person.

Everyone found their way to the stadium in their own fashion. And to those pitiful souls who had dared to feel sorry for the beaten pitcher, the second game delivered its declaration:

"You think you have it rough? Your lives, watching today's game, are the legend."

The bat came crashing down on the skulls of fans who'd let their guard down, thinking surely nothing could be worse than this.

The curtain rose on the most miserable, most heartbreaking game in the entire history of the Superstars franchise.

To give you the results first: nearly every "great rout" already on the books lost its reason for being listed.

"We were wrong. We apologize. We're so sorry."

You had to be that pathetic for people to stay quiet. A game in which countless viewers were liable to be carted off with eye strain and sky-high blood pressure.

To summarize it simply: this was the first event of its kind in the history of Korean pro baseball.

That was a tragedy profound enough to wring those words out of an all-purpose caster who'd called mixed martial arts bouts without flinching.

First, the new records set in this game: most errors in a single game, combined — renewed. The Doubles committed one. The Superstars committed nine. Ten in total.

The Doubles' lone error came when Noh In-seong dove for a hard-hit smash and the webbing of his glove literally tore open.

"Wow, do you not maintain your glove, In-seong?"

This happened in the top of the 7th — today's starter long gone, the game tilted so far off its axis it was practically vertical. Yeom Dong-goo, who had idiotically allowed a runner aboard, griped at Noh In-seong, and his backside was promptly normalized.

"I'm a pitcher too — you think I'm going to walk on eggshells for you, you dumb ball-shredding bastard?! Go throw the ball!"

THWACK!

"GYAAAAGH...!!!"

He was already furious enough about committing the error himself, and now his own draft classmate had to rub salt in the wound the moment his glove fell apart.

"Ugh. Do you have any idea how long it takes to break in a new glove? My backup's still in the bending stage."

Noh In-seong raged at the destruction of his favorite glove, but he couldn't quite sustain it. Sure, it could be repaired with reinforcement — but it'd last a few more starts at most before needing full replacement.

And the reason Noh In-seong restrained himself to this degree was simple.

"You son of a—(beep!)—bitches!!!"

CRASH!

Unable to endure the sudden turn of events, someone in the away section downed a bottle of liquor in one shot and hurled it shattering to the floor. A near-shouted double curse blasted into the broadcast microphones, only barely bleeped to safety by the sound director. Chicken bones and assorted small objects rained down from the away stands like weather.

Ordinarily, a disturbance this size would have drawn fury from the other fans or the home crowd — but with everyone busy staring, wide-eyed, at the deranged Superstars away fans, nobody exactly felt like picking a fight.

An overwhelmingly negative ballgame. One Superstars fan genuinely collapsed.

"You... you fucking bastards call yourselves a baseball team...!! Hrk...!!"

"Oh dear, we've got a patient over here!"

A stretcher appeared in the stands to haul the man away. The game had collected every single negative element baseball was capable of producing.

Renewing the single-team error record wasn't enough — they'd gone and set the combined record too? Noh In-seong's final error turned out to be the last button that blew their uniform clean open.

And what galled the Superstars fans even more was this:

"That's fucking OURS, you know! You dog bastards!"

The bastards playing in today's game were, in fact, the original holders of that very record.

Back in their Dragons days, under a broadcast corporation for a parent company. Veterans of every direction of assault — mutual destruction (5 errors vs. 4), pure perpetration (7 errors vs. 2) — they'd been involved in every one of the nine-error games on the books. It seemed that from those days onward, the Doubles had simply been fated to have their name enshrined on every list of great routs in existence.

And thanks to the old record being knocked off its throne, the Doubles were now set to occupy, with clean hands, the pure and unambiguous position of perpetrator.

Funnily enough, that much still sat on the razor's edge of what people could accept.

A miserable record? Well, it's sad, but what can you do. Already got wrecked — might as well have a laugh about it. People, after all, follow the five stages of death with rigorous fidelity.

"Sigh... yeah. That sounds about right for you guys."

There were, apparently, people who could make it that far down the staircase.

The problem was a record that left everyone stuck at stage two: anger. The sheer size of what had turned the entire stadium violent was simply too much.

'Three errors in a single play.'

A record belonging to the elbow-regeneration specialist whose surgical procedure, named after him, was more famous than anything he'd ever done with a bat or glove. A record entered into baseball's history books exactly once through the year 2051 — and it had happened here, in Korean baseball.

Every last drop of that fury was now pouring down onto one player's head. A player deemed too much of a lightning rod even to leave on the bench — the manager had sent him home early.

"You dog bastard! Are you even a human being?!"

Second-year shortstop Jeong Woong-in was collecting extra lifespan from every single person in the building.

If yesterday was Soo Byung-jin's day to lose his mind, today belonged to Jeong Woong-in.

Same draft class as Noh In-seong — a 2051 graduate. Strange how the recent wave of '51 draftees all seemed to be catching the abuse, though.

"Let me just say it straight: outside of the big-name guys, this year's draft class is rotting away in Double-A."

"Hing."

It was simply that less-polished prospects with a shot at the first team had been showing up in unusually high numbers.

The Superstars' second pick of the 2051 draft had been a position player — a shortstop, no less. The general manager at the time had picked the freshly graduated rookie Jeong Woong-in for one simple reason.

"Well... the glove is a question mark, but I'd say there's a real chance he develops into a solid hitter."

Raw power capable of clearing the fence even with aluminum bats dialed down to wooden-bat trampoline levels. In other words: genuinely elite natural strength.

He carried the label of an "offensive shortstop," and plenty of scouts doubted his glove — but his body control was sound, and his range was wide, bankrolled by sprint speed and quick reactions.

"Let's see... five years? Raise him right and we could flip him for a decent price."

Chosen by coaches confident they could polish him into a premium trade chip, he'd been developed with painstaking care. As of last season, he was one of the players the Superstars cherished and coddled.

Though in practice he'd mostly been used as a backup — because this start was a trade evaluation.

"Do we trust this kid's glove, or do we park him at third or first, bring in somebody else, and..."

"So we play him, and see what the tax bill comes to. Understood, sir."

He'd only drawn the start as part of the trade-chip sorting process under the new GM, Jeong Jae-yoon. Nobody had foreseen anything like this.

"Wow. I genuinely don't know if that kid's ever going to play professional baseball again."

Having blown past a 100% tax rate, Jeong Woong-in was now a man worried about whether he'd make it home alive.

Noh In-seong, a brand-new glove fitted onto his hand, sourly called up the memory of the inning where that record had been born.

It had all begun in the bottom of the 4th — the Doubles' turn at bat, leading off with Noh In-seong.

First, let's be clear about one thing: this entire catastrophe did not erupt from the opening pitch.

The opposing starter was a man who'd crossed over from the Doubles. Jeon In-soo.

"Who knew the day would come when I'd be the one shutting down my own old team..."

It felt vaguely like committing a sin — but a professional does his job, always. And Jeon In-soo had somehow, grittily, muscle-through-ly managed three full innings, striking out four along the way.

To be fair, danger had certainly loomed. The ball Noh In-seong had ripped in the bottom of the 1st would have been a hit against almost anyone — a hard bounding ball screaming through the gap between third and short.

Back when Jeong Woong-in, in a desperate full stretch, had managed to snag it, there was no massacre on the horizon.

Caster and commentator alike could see a future where this kid's glove improved, and said as much. Riding that momentum, Jeon In-soo went on quietly stacking outs — barring the occasional scratch hit or walk, no hard contact to be found.

"Why does that old man look better out there..."

The starting catcher, Jo In-soo, was busy yet again today administering warmth to his battered backside. He could still strap on the mask, sure — but with his rear end liable to split open again at any moment, a long start was out of the question.

And so Lim Jae-min once again crouched behind the plate — which meant that at the dish, he now faced the newly-minted enemy, Jeon In-soo. Something about squaring off against your old workout buddy in a different uniform felt strange. A rookie's reaction, not yet accustomed to the ways of trades.

"Strike three! Batter out!"

"...Ugh. Then again, come to think of it, now's hardly the time to be debating who's playing better than whom."

The man whose extra-base hits had vanished like ghosts ever since his one lone homer — Lim Jae-min took his swing, walked back to the dugout an out, utterly pathetic. End of the inning.

And so, while every batter in the lineup swung away at a baseball that today seemed to be frolicking giddily along the border of the strike zone—

"In-seong-ya, I'm throwing a shutout today!"

— the Superstars heaped praise on Jeon In-soo, hoping to feed him another inning.

"No? I think it's about time you took me out, don't you?"

"What."

The man with a preternaturally quick read on the situation walked off the mound the instant the top of the 4th began.

"Wow. At my age, anything beyond an opener's a tall order."

Being up against his former club, there had always been a part of him that didn't care to get lit up by them. The price of pitching at full throttle arrived as a bill — sixty pitches, three innings — slapped squarely across Jeon In-soo's face. And the veteran with a sharp eye for his own condition chose the hook without a moment's hesitation.

Thanks to a starter with an excellent sense of timing, the suffering, of course, fell to the bullpen.

"Agh... I'm losing my mind. Our pen's already running on fumes as it is."

The pitching coach sobbed — but what could anyone do? Sucks to be you; you should've bought an inning-eating starter.

Naturally, a long reliever was about to be fed to the remaining innings. And in the middle of all this, the bottom of the 4th — Noh In-seong's second hard-hit ball of the day rocketed off his bat at maximum exit velocity, bounding off the turf toward almost the exact same spot as before.

"...Huh!"

Thud.

True to form for a shortstop whose glove was a work in progress, he couldn't secure it in one motion — the ball slammed into the leather. And as if on a mission to prove that his earlier gem had been pure fluke, the ball caromed away in the opposite direction.

No safe call had come down yet, but by now, scooping the ball back up and throwing was a foregone conclusion of disaster.

Noh In-seong possessed the kind of raw physical gifts that made even great baserunners click their tongues at his speed. He was already past the halfway mark to first — a safe call was as good as guaranteed. The press corps had pre-written their "safe" notes, and an error had already been penciled into the box score next to Jeong Woong-in's name. The ruling was that the muffed catch had aided Noh In-seong's arrival — one error logged.

Now, a normal shortstop doesn't force a throw here. He lets the play wash over him and move on. After sprinting to first, stepping off the bag and signaling for a dead ball is, frankly, the best available decision. Throwing to second is the second-worst option. And "continuing the play" is — obviously, self-evidently — the worst possible play.

"Eit!"

The young shortstop, blissfully oblivious, chose the worst possible option. Determined to nab Noh In-seong already three-quarters of the way down the line, he panicked and fired to first. The ball missed the first baseman's mitt by a margin that the second baseman could have caught with the slightest turn of his head.

Watching the ball sail into the outfield, Noh In-seong tagged first and set off for second.

At this point, the throwing blunder had granted Noh In-seong an extra base — two errors on the ledger. In the ensuing panic, the right fielder who barely managed to scoop the ball and fire it toward second committed an error of his own.

Naturally, if that ball got misplayed it would roll toward the left-field foul line — and since Noh In-seong had shown zero intention of stopping at third, it fell automatically to the left fielder to field it and throw.

"...Damn it. I've got the throwing shoulder of a schoolgirl..."

Kim Jung-ryul, the Superstars' starting left fielder, had no intention whatsoever of firing home. Any full-power throw from him would trace a gentle arc and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠float down like a feather. Left field is not a position you man by virtue of your arm or your glove. A relay in this situation belongs to a pitcher or a shortstop — someone with real shoulders.

So the nearest strong arm, automatically, was the shortstop Jeong Woong-in — and Kim Jung-ryul fired the ball in for the relay.

"...AAAAGH!!!"

CLANK—!!!

Failing once more to stop Noh In-seong as he crossed the plate, three errors in a single play were now complete.

"Wow. At this point that's not even a motel — that's practically semi-basement housing. An inside-the-park semi-basement."

Noh In-seong stood at home plate with an expression closer to awe than anything else — barely a shred of mockery or sneering left in him. Watching the shortstop kneel there, head buried in the dirt like a man whose entire life had come apart at the seams... his hands came together on their own.

Wasn't there some saying about how people clasp their hands before something great they cannot comprehend?

A shortstop, hands pressed together, praying for the soul of a fellow shortstop.

"Please. Never, ever come to our team."

The problem was that what he was actually praying for was that no player like that ever got traded in after he himself was gone.

Still. A prayer was a prayer.

The game ended, naturally, at 20–2 — a result far, far more miserable than the day before.

The fans who had eaten Hanmandu one day and then bought season tickets the next were now beginning to genuinely despise the franchise.

"You insane bastards! I spent good money on tickets and you serve up this shit two days in a ROW?!"

"Get out here right now! A baseball simulator I run every single day is more realistic than anything you'd manage, you bastard!"

The incomprehensible pitching decisions on day one were bad enough — but the record-making atrocity on day two turned the fanbase properly feral.

Before the season of autumn baseball could arrive, the Superstars had been greeted by the season of the witch hunt.

"What is HAPPENING?! Damn it all — the trade market's already in shambles, and now I have to find a manager too?!"

As Jeong Jae-yoon tore at his hair in a stress-hazed spiral — a certain man spotted an opportunity to drag an entire franchise down to the very basement of hell, one more time.

Noh In-seong grinned, slow and wide.

"...If I stack one more record on top of all this, the stadium might just physically detonate, you know?"

Good intentions are invisible to the eye. But malice? Malice is plain as day.

Having caught the scent of a chance to eliminate a rival, Noh In-seong turned his steps toward the manager's office the moment the game ended.