A Well-Earned Rest
The world is a place where, if something feels unfair, you have to prove it.
That holds true in almost every respect.
No matter how much people sing your praises, if you have no results on paper, everyone dismisses you — and sports are no exception.
If anything, sports might be even worse about it.
After all, the very reason a shortstop with a shattered batting average came back into the world with a shattered personality — a soul transplanted wholesale — was that, faced with the question of "no track record, so what now?" at the end of a sorry, wandering existence, he ended up slamming his head into a patch of ice.
"That was when, drowning in despair, I drank my way through a cold, cold winter..."
"...You didn't drink a single drop all winter. What kind of nonsense is that, In-seong, really."
Who spouts garbage like that over a nice meal of premium beef? The June MVP stared at the May MVP.
This was the place where, at Noh In-seong's insistence that he foot the bill for a round of food, Song Jin-wook, Jung Soo-jung, and Noh In-seong had gathered.
Three people, seated at a galbi joint in Suwon, placing their order.
"...But do we really have to eat galbi?"
"Oh come on, ever heard of sympathetic magic? You eat the good part, and that part of you gets stronger!"
--Pretty sure that's not how it works. Pretty sure he's just messing with me...
That was what Song Jin-wook thought to himself, but once the beautifully caramelizing marinated short ribs started hitting the grill, he went quiet.
This month's Player of the Month: the man whose ribs got fractured beat the man who shatters ribs.
For the first time since Noh In-seong's debut, Song Jin-wook had succeeded in denying him a clean sweep of the trophies.
Monthly MVP or not, the award ceremony didn't take place on the field.
Since Song Jin-wook was laid up in a hospital bed instead of at the ballpark, the presenter had no choice but to come to him — the whole event consisting of a personal visit, the two of them cozily squeezed into one frame for a single photo.
"Congratulations. Honestly, you're the first winner I've met other than Noh In-seong."
"...Haha."
The second-ever recipient, in the eyes of the sponsoring company's representative who had backed the award two years running, flashed a V-sign for the camera in street clothes instead of a uniform.
The truth was, Noh In-seong was unconditionally ahead of Song Jin-wook in WAR for the month.
The gap between a infielder with no defensive 'D' to speak of and a starting shortstop, versus a pitcher who threw 31 innings allowing 8 runs while the other logged 3 innings allowing 1 — that difference was, surprisingly, deep and wide.
So how did a man who posted negatives everywhere except hitting beat a man who posted positives everywhere?
Simple. Step one: just hit like an absolute monster.
First, a tie for fourth-most home runs in a single month. Eleven.
"You can't pitch around that lunatic. A normal person has to challenge Song Jin-wook."
"Putting two runners on base is a pure loss, no matter how you slice it."
With Noh In-seong — who could steal bases as casually as swiping his mom's hidden butter cookies — standing on the basepaths, simply facing Song Jin-wook at the plate was enough to make an opposing team's head split open.
Based on the first at-bat of the first inning: with nobody out and Noh In-seong aboard, the expected runs sat at 0.865. But walk Song Jin-wook, let Noh In-seong swipe third, and the expected runs more than doubled.
"1.753 in the blink of an eye. Might as well challenge him — even in the worst case, eating a homer isn't a catastrophic loss."
The result was that, all through June, pitchers challenged Song Jin-wook with a 'please, just this once!' mentality — and June's Song Jin-wook dutifully smashed each and every one of their heads in.
With one precisely-timed swing cracking a pitcher's psyche in an instant, what chance did the parade of batters behind him have of getting a pitch anywhere near the zone?
By the time he got thrown out at first after taking a ball off his ribs in Game 1 against Daegu, his OPS was over 1.5.
Carrying a WAR north of 3.2 on the strength of the bat in his hands alone, he and Noh In-seong were dragging the Doubles to a 54-25 record as of the start of the four-game series in Daegu.
Judging by that alone, the contrarian camp would pop up asking, 'Wait, but Noh In-seong's WAR as a pitcher alone is only 1.8, no?'
"We only count half the WAR for your second position. You did remember that, right?"
"Ah."
A new rule born from a reporter's mercy killing, and from the pair systematically purging every last one of their votes from various ballots.
And that rule, ironically, worked against Noh In-seong.
For a shortstop-first, pitcher-second player, the two roles combined to 2.1 + 0.9 = 3.
Thanks to the revised regulations, a miracle became possible — the miracle of Song Jin-wook briefly overtaking Noh In-seong — granted the premise that this had to be 'the best month of hitting he would ever produce in his life.'
On top of that, Noh In-seong simply had far fewer opportunities to swing the bat compared to Song Jin-wook.
"It's not even the same number of games played. He gets way more days off than I do."
Unlike an everyday player, Noh In-seong occasionally sat — and that put him at a disadvantage.
Add to that: the moment runners reached base in front of him, surgical intentional walks came flying in. Stolen bases require an open runway, so they lose value when the bottom of the order stalls or there are two outs.
And the value of an intentional walk being worth far less than a hit or a natural walk counted against him too.
Only with every single one of these conditions stacked together had beating Noh In-seong even been possible, and Song Jin-wook could only manage a bitter smile.
"I worked this hard, and next month he's just going to stomp me all over again."
He'd barely eked out this month's win as it was; next month wouldn't even be a contest.
"Hey, Jin-wook. Grill the meat."
"Oppa, this is delicious. It's practically melting?"
"Haha, glad to hear it. And Noh In-seong, you little bastard, exactly how many servings are you planning to—"
—Thwack.
Unlike at the award ceremony celebrating him, the pain from his not-yet-healed ribs was still very much attached.
Song Jin-wook wouldn't be back until tomorrow — the day Noh In-seong completed his 11-game sentence and returned.
With the All-Star break looming right around the corner anyway, his plan was to rest up fully and come back then.
"...Argh, this punk ate all the meat and left me nothing but bones."
"Who was it that threatened me with a knife for being slow with my chopsticks?"
Meanwhile his own wife was rubbing a belly so full she claimed it didn't even look like she'd eaten.
Watching the scene with a fond, contented smile, Song Jin-wook added more meat to the grill.
"Aw, damn it. Fine. Eat it all. Five hundred a serving — I'd be eating galbi and everything else in pairs anyway."
"Wowww, yaaay!"
Award acceptance speech? Who cared. Song Jin-wook was hungry.
Meanwhile, even after returning for the series right before the All-Star break, people were still glued to Noh In-seong.
"No, you'll ruin everything if you don't show! At least play in the actual game, come on! You took the votes, didn't you?!"
"Yeah~ can't hear you~ gotta go earn that ad money~"
The number one vote-getter, Noh In-seong, was exactly the kind of guy who would turn 'your popularity vote' into a genuine no-show.
They'd figured that this month, Song Jin-wook could at least partially — if not perfectly — cover for him.
They'd been prepared to bleed from the eyes if necessary and build the entire All-Star Game around Song Jin-wook instead...
"Goddamn it, the guy's injury still isn't healed. We're screwed, boys."
Noh In-seong fleecing people was business as usual — set that aside — but the cause of it all was still very much lying there defiant.
With Plan B having collapsed in spectacular fashion, all they had left in the toolbox was their one trick: clinging to him in the most shameless way possible.
But Noh In-seong, naturally, moved at a pace faster than just about anyone else alive.
"If I run, what exactly are you going to do about it?"
"...Oh, please."
In a corner of Jamsil Dome, ahead of the home series against Suwon, office workers who couldn't match Noh In-seong's speed were witnessed repeatedly groaning and gasping for air.
The Doubles had lost the twin machine guns they'd carried in both hands — Noh In-seong and Song Jin-wook.
But a rich household can survive on leverage alone for three generations.
First, Daegu — saddled with the full weight of Noh In-seong risk — had to eat a clean sweep.
They'd already been scraping it out at fifth place, and then their starting third baseman vanished, their starter and catcher vanished, and their starting center fielder and his backup were making regular trips to the urologist. What winning formula was supposed to emerge from that?
A kind of magic occurred: their depth evaporated so thoroughly that they made for a good, competitive series against a proper rebuilding team.
Up to that point, it had all been the expected outcome — at this stage the Doubles sat at 56-25, an overwhelming first place in the league...
"We replenished our depth too! Okay, sure, we couldn't pry Jong Min-soo loose, but still!!"
"GM. There are tears of blood coming out of your eyes."
The Superstars had traded for Lim Jin-hong and Jeong Him-chan out of Gwangju, massively reinforcing their pitching depth and lineup.
When they took a weakened Doubles squad in a winning series, cracks slowly began to show.
The Jamsil rivalry series against the Grizzlies also went down as a losing series, 1-2.
"Without those two punks, even a slugfest is winnable!"
"We could fight this without even juggling the rotation, don't you think?"
All this time they'd only barely scraped past the Doubles with gambits like reshuffling the rotation to counter their asymmetric firepower.
But this time, 'that punk' wasn't starting on the mound, so the Grizzlies could face them with their feet up.
And then, against Daejeon — a four-game sweep at their hands. Three straight losses.
All three games devolved into slugfests, with no superstar to lean on when the team wobbled, and they fumbled every single clutch opportunity, losing three in a row by three runs or fewer.
Crack—!!
"Beep. That's a base hit."
The mentally scrambled young catcher Myeong Jeong-ho had displaced starting catcher Jung Gu-young into the DH slot and settled in behind the plate, and Song Woo-jin — the rookie pitcher drafted this year — had emerged as the new closer in place of Sung Hyung-joon. The generational changing of the guard was complete.
And Jeong Im-taek, the Doubles manager who had posted a wretched 4-7 record during the suspension window, welcomed Noh In-seong — who was once again raiding his snack tin — with open arms.
"Oh. Right. In-seong. You're finally here."
"...What. You're not going to yell at me for stealing your snacks?!"
Noh In-seong's eyes went wide. He'd stolen them fully braced for a knuckle sandwich, with a snack-budget resupply as the absolute best-case outcome.
At the pity radiating from Noh In-seong's gaze — this poor bastard must have had it rough... — Jeong Im-taek's blood pressure began to climb, then he recalled the record his team had posted and bowed his head deep instead.
Frankly? It had been miserable.
Honestly speaking, I considered it a blessing our team had managed even this kind of record.
"Well, I figured we'd at least break even, but the Superstars pulled the trigger on that trade faster than I expected."
The moment Busan yanked the load-bearing pillar named Jong Min-soo out of Daegu, the Superstars had immediately reinforced the team from a different angle — sound judgment, genuinely.
With the team's two cornerstones departing at precisely this moment, they'd dropped games they would have won under normal circumstances.
"And in the middle of all that, the losses snowballed and snowballed and... annoyingly, the whole thing detonated in Game 4 against Daejeon."
That's why a team riding a good vibe and a team riding an express train straight to the bottom post results that are worlds apart.
But as of today, at least, that vibe was due to change considerably.
First: I, accounting for nearly half the team's total strength, was back.
Second: Suwon was a rebuilding team with an astronomically long road still ahead of them.
Crackaaack—!!
Besides, Suwon was a team that had already been burned plenty by my stolen bases.
Which is to say: poor souls with no choice but to come at me head-on.
"Hey, sunbae. When exactly are you planning to show us something?"
"...This punk talks trash after hitting a homer. Just hurry up and run."
He made it look like he was goofing off every single day, so it was hard to tell when this man actually planned to reveal anything.
Having teased Song Hak-joo exactly once at third base, I strolled leisurely back to the dugout.
And as the scoreboard flipped to 1-0, a gut instinct whispered to me.
"We're winning today."
The fans cheering me on, the opposing fans slumping in the visitors' section, and the fact that Andy was starting today — it all lined up.
Behind Andy's complete game shutout, the Doubles reignited their winning engine.
The machine that had stood still began to move again.
The next day, thanks to Jackson having developed a brand-new pitch in place of his split-finger — one designed to be drilled into the dirt —
"Argh, goddamn it, how many is that now?!"
Today, the pitch had evolved from deceiving hitters into providing enlightenment sessions for the catcher instead.
The game exploded from the very first inning, and the starting catcher was wilting under a stadium roof with the air conditioning blasting at full tilt.
"...Whew. Substitution!"
"Sir? A pitching change?"
"No, I'm swapping Jo In-soo out for Lim Jae-min. The poor bastard's finished."
A disaster for the ages — the starting catcher leaving earlier than the starting pitcher — and they lost the game, sure.
But after Andy and Jackson came Noh In-seong's turn in the rotation.
WHACK—!!
"AAAGH! You son of a—! How do you pull this exact crap every single time and never get ejected for it?!"
"Come on, sunbae, a slider can get away from you. If that had been the four-seamer, you'd already be in your grave."
Toting Lim Jae-min's skin-crawling attempt at humor, Song Hak-joo limped down to first base through the pain —
and the next batter grounded into a double play, ending the ballgame on the spot.
Nine innings, zero runs. Thirteen strikeouts, two walks.
And exactly one hit batter.
Suwon — plunked by a pitch and denied a single run — accepted the humiliation in full.
"Sign here, please, if you're a team with at least TWO batters who hit like human beings!"
"A well-rested Noh In-seong... does not lose to rebuilding teams... as a rule...!!"
He claimed his return start in the form of a complete game shutout, gifting a vacation to a bullpen carrying eleven games' worth of accumulated exhaustion.
The end of the first half. 60 wins, 33 losses, a .645 winning percentage — the Doubles closed out the first half of the season in emphatic fashion.
"Please! We're begging you! We won't ask for anything else, so you have to at least appear in the All-Star Game!"
The association officials, still unable to finalize Noh In-seong's participation, had also failed to lock down the final rosters.
They'd come all the way to his family home to grovel at his feet.
His mother had no idea what was even going on, and his father had gone out and hadn't come back.
The only one who grasped the situation fastest was his little sister Siyeon — partly because she occasionally read the articles about her brother.
"Oppa, honestly, I feel a little bad for them... Shouldn't you help them out at least a little?"
Looking up from her book and surveying the scene, she demanded her brother's cooperation on the grounds that the association people deserved pity.
No matter how bankrupt Noh In-seong's conscience was, how rotten his personality, how self-centered a man he was —
when people come groveling to your door begging like this every single day, even the worst of us usually caves out of sheer irritation.
"No, but suddenly doing a complete 180 from everything I've been saying and announcing I'll attend? That's a bit..."
He had an image to maintain, and he was still somewhat resistant to the idea of going.
But his sister was on their side now, and these people seemed prepared to hover around him right up until the All-Star Game itself.
Amid this bewildering situation, Noh In-seong's eye happened to catch the book Siyeon had been reading moments before.
"...Oh. Now this... could actually be fun."
"...Oppa?"
From Siyeon's perspective, it must have felt like a full-grown adult suddenly coveting her book.
But all Noh In-seong needed was the book's concept.
"Siyeon, you're a genius! This is it! I can stir the pot AND all I have to do is be present at the stadium!"
Leaving his dazed sister behind, Noh In-seong sent the association officials home with the words, 'I'll appear at the game.'
The officials, reassured, heaved sighs of relief, cooing 'Let's keep it exactly like this!'
It would not take long for those sighs of relief to become sighs of an entirely different kind.
At the All-Star Game, Noh In-seong succeeded in finding his concept.