Did Noh In-seong Act Up Again Today? (Part 1)
Noh In-seong had thrown a shutout in the first game of the five-game set against the Grizzlys.
And then, the very next day — despite having already banked the win as the starter — he showed up at the ballpark again. Unbelievably.
Given that he never, under any circumstances, showed up the day after pitching, the Doubles roster could only gape. Was this some miracle destined for the history books?
"Ack! Is it Teasing Season 2?!"
There were, in fact, a few whose PTSD flared at the memory of last year's particular circle of hell.
"...I came to pick up my blanket. I just realized I apparently left it here?"
Noh In-seong spread out the mold-colored blanket sitting in the corner of his locker and folded it back up.
"Without it yesterday — no, wait, I'm telling you the floor felt cold?"
Grumbling all the while, he lovingly quartered the blanket and pressed it into a razor-sharp fold.
"Ah, goddamn it. Here comes the PTSD..."
Jo In-soo, a Sangmu alum, and Joo Hak-soo, who'd shown up just to get his workout routine in despite not being on the roster, both recoiled in horror. Kim Jeong-mook simply turned away. "I'm not watching this. Not one second of it..."
Noh In-seong was unintentionally salting the wounds of every Sangmu veteran on the roster.
But what could he do? If he didn't manage this properly, he was the one who'd end up exhausted.
"Look, you fold it right, it lasts for years."
Condition management is a professional's most essential virtue.
Pro ballplayers need to extract every ounce of quality rest available to recover their stamina. Naturally, they're sensitive about everything — even a single blanket. A pillow gets even slightly flat?
They're human-shaped routine machines who would buy a brand-new one the very next morning if that's what it took.
And behind Noh In-seong, who was tenderly tucking his freshly folded blanket into his bag in full view of everyone—
"Hey, In-seong. You got traded."
Jeong Im-taek clapped him on the shoulder with a fond little smirk.
"Traded? You looking to get punched? I haven't even beaten up any civilians yet."
Jeong Im-taek flicked him on the ear for that utterly unpredictable response.
"Haha, you insane bastard. Not that kind of traded."
...He didn't actually get traded, right? Doing his best to ignore the ominous rumbling from somewhere deep in his gut, the manager pulled up the hologram.
There it was, in black and white: the winning streak had hit 25.
"Please... please let it end in front of us! I'm begging you!"
"Aaahh!! In that case, win MORE! I can't stand the ending--!!"
"Ahh... just stop here, won't you? You are truly, truly beautiful!"
One team, at least, was rejoicing at the privilege of watching history unfold live. Meanwhile, countless Korean baseball fans looked on at this hellish situation with their hearts in their throats.
At last — never mind that it was some backwater league or whatever — the Doubles had landed on the front page of MLB.com, the beating heart of American baseball.
And there, grinning ear to ear on that page, was one devil of a bastard standing on the mound.
"Ha, great shot."
Noh In-seong, thoroughly pleased with his own (rather handsome?) face.
"What the hell is this? Aigo — how does this bastard get a front-page article without even being a big leaguer?"
Some envied the recognition.
"Wait, you seriously came here just for a blanket? Hey, since you're already here, at least take a few swings as a pinch-hitter before you go."
Some were scheming to squeeze every drop out of their available manpower.
Click!
"...Why on earth is Noh In-seong taking a picture?"
Noh In-seong was simply photographing the assembled Doubles roster. That was all.
"...But this photo is going to end up on the front page, isn't it..."
And the moment he began chanting that ominous spell, Jeong Im-taek shouted in desperation.
"Somebody gag that bastard!"
Making the entire team anxious before the game had even started — what a world-class jinx of a human being.
Jeong Im-taek hauled the living defeat-flag generator out of the room, bundled up in his own blanket, and administered summary ear punishment (mandatory).
"Ack! My razor-sharp blanket!"
"If you stay here, someone's going to gut you with a box cutter. Go home. NOW!"
Having successfully raised the entire Doubles roster's combat power through sheer irritation and fury, Noh In-seong boarded the Line 2 subway just like that.
"...Great. So now even Line 2 gets weirdos, not just Line 1."
"What's that on his head? Is that a blanket?"
Blanket draped snugly over his head. A little warm, admittedly.
"At least the reporters can't latch onto me like this. Go home, ice shower, sleep. That's the plan."
Being written off as just some lunatic beat being hounded by the press, as far as Noh In-seong was concerned.
The problem was that the exact same treatment was waiting for him at his own apartment.
"What — is this crazy son of mine?!"
SLAAAAP--!!
"GWAAAHH...!!"
His mother's Dragon-Style Eighteen Palm Strikes landed squarely on his backside the moment she realized he'd humiliated the entire neighborhood.
And thus Noh In-seong rolled around the living room floor, miserably rubbing at the handprint.
Miraculously — perhaps thanks to the blessing of Noh In-seong trolling everyone and going home with a blanket on his head in the summer heat.
"...Good grief. When something isn't meant to happen, it really, truly doesn't."
Or perhaps thanks to the Korean peninsula's peculiar climate — autumn practically here, and the temperature still stuck in summer.
Either way, the Grizzlys manager was confronted with the hellish situation erupting in his own locker room and went pale.
"GRAAAH...!! GRAAH!! Get out of that bathroom THIS INSTANT...!!"
"Hey! I'm your senior! When a senior is talking to you...!!"
"If you don't move right now, senior or no senior, I will absolutely destroy this locker room!!"
Emergency had struck the Grizzlys roster: bacterial gastroenteritis, out of nowhere.
They'd been clinging to 5th place, a single game ahead of Gwangju. Yesterday's loss had erased that margin entirely, and a few of the angrier players had made a decision after the game.
"Ah, damn it. Hey. Nobody touches alcohol tonight. Just load up on meat."
"That bastard Noh In-seong isn't pitching tomorrow anyway. Watch out for the hitters and it's nothing..."
True professionals to the end, they'd eaten quietly, without a drop of alcohol.
"That damned BBQ joint... I will shut them down if it's the last thing I do...!!"
But bacterial gastroenteritis offers no answers. Diarrhea, cramps, gas, vomiting — a once-in-a-generation illness that strips away every last shred of stamina a body has.
It wouldn't kill you. It wasn't even seriously painful.
But your stamina would drop so catastrophically that breathing itself became an effort — bad enough to rival the Doubles at their most spent.
"We didn't even eat raw beef! How the hell were they storing that meat for it to give us this...!!"
Of course, unless you grill beef down to charcoal, the risk of gastroenteritis never fully goes away. The problem was that they'd eaten their steak seared to nothing but a blush at some chophouse.
Screeeech...!
As the ball arrived at first base, Sung Ji-chang wore a complicated expression — anger and relief fighting for space on his face.
"MOVE--!!"
He frantically shoved his way past people and bolted for the locker room.
"Whew. What a circus..."
Alves, the mercenary pitcher who'd ordered fried chicken alone at home the night before over a religious issue, and Jeong Han-sol, who'd simply been feeling blue and had one lonely glass of soju at home — both of them fought with everything they had.
TAAAAANG---!!
Whether it was fate's little joke, or simply the prank of one devil of a bastard.
Their record had sunk all the way to 6th. And on top of that, the eternal stigma of going down in history as the 'team that allowed the 26-game streak.'
WOOOOOO---!!
"...We're sorry!"
While the Grizzlys players lined up and bowed their heads before the fans—
"BWAAHAHA! Look at this! Behold my beautiful walk-off hit!"
"Serve the booze and the meat! This is the hour of the heroes who set a world record--!!"
Led by Song Jin-wook, for whom eating was simply joy itself, and Jo In-soo, the day's undisputed MVP, the entire Doubles roster — trusting in the rest day still owed to them — launched into a full team dinner.
A modest celebration of the 26th consecutive win: beef, at a grill house.
Save for the few who'd gone off on their own, everyone devoured meat the way other men drink.
"...And that's how we ended up like this?"
Two days later, standing in front of the away-team bus, Noh In-seong interrogated Lim Jae-min with the look of a man whose brain had stopped working.
"Yeah. In-seong. That's... that's what happened."
Perhaps it was fate that the menu had been identical.
As their reward for diligently putting away all that beef, a massive chunk of the roster took to their beds and declared themselves absent from the road trip.
Diagnosis: bacterial gastroenteritis.
Truly — people who share Jamsil share their diseases too.
The playing pool for the Daegu road trip — already thin as a single layer of crepe — had somehow gotten thinner still.
"...This isn't even the minor league roster... this is basically a rehab squad, isn't it?"
There were more complete strangers in the room than familiar faces.
Never mind the 10-day IL patients they wouldn't see again until next week's Gwangju series.
You simply cannot send men to a road trip who need to find a bathroom every three steps.
What remained: Noh In-seong, Song Jin-wook, Sung Hyun-tak, Lim Jae-min, and Kim Jun-soo. On the pitching side, Kim Jeong-mook plus the Jeong In-woo and Jeong In-young brothers.
With the bullpen almost entirely shipped back down to the minors, they were playing an away series. Everyone heaved a long sigh at the sad reality.
"For my part, let's just say I didn't eat anything. It was a rest day."
Having finished assessing the damage, Noh In-seong looked around at the four surviving hitters and four surviving pitchers.
"So how did you people survive?"
As it turned out, some people had skipped the dinner entirely, which was why there were any first-team players left at all. From what he gathered, Lim Jae-min had passed to do his strength training and then stuffed himself silly with protein. Sung Hyun-tak had been off eating foods that packed on fat even faster than beef did.
"I was wiped out, so I just went home and slept."
"Fair enough. Jun-soo hyung has been getting run into the ground every single day."
Jeong In-woo was starting the next game, and Jeong In-young got packaged in with his brother by default.
"If I couldn't stomach it, there's no way this idiot could have."
"So it worked out great for me, right? You did me a favor, right?"
--AARGH, this little... hit me! I dare you, hit me!
"And Jeong-mook hyung was on a date... hold on. What's your excuse?"
Leaving the two bickering idiot brothers to wrestle it out, Noh In-seong completed his survey — and discovered something deeply unsettling.
Song Jin-wook, of all people, had attended the dinner. Had eaten every single scrap of meat in sight. And was somehow in perfect health.
"Right? Why am I the only one fine?"
Drank all the booze, ate all the beef, and then strolled out the next morning with a fresh, glowing face.
"Maybe I was never the weirdest bastard in this organization after all."
"In-seong, your bullsh*t packs a real kick. Knock it off and get off the bus."
Even Jeong Im-taek had been carted off to the hospital, forcing the head coach to step in as acting manager — an incident for the ages.
Before anyone noticed, the bus had pulled up in front of the team hotel in Daegu.
They knew how this would end. And yet the hour had come to swing an egg at a boulder anyway.
"Damn it. Of all the times — a three-game series against these bastards at our absolute worst."
Counting the game postponed by rain: three games in total.
Half a game back in 7th place, Daegu held the golden ticket to autumn baseball in their hands.
The truth was, every team that faced the Doubles knew.
"By now it's not even a player pool... it's basically tissue paper with holes in it."
At some point or another, they'd all noticed the team had been riddled through with gaps. Hitters, pitchers — there was nothing left propping the thing up.
"So why in God's name aren't they losing?"
It was genuinely baffling — the luck, the results, everything kept breaking their way, and there was simply no answer to be found.
Pitch around Noh In-seong, and Song Jin-wook would detonate on precisely that day. Sit Noh In-seong out, pitch around Song Jin-wook instead, and — wouldn't you know it — their own starter would implode.
"Damn it all. They do say the strongest team is also the luckiest team."
Everyone spat on the ground, muttering that it had been nothing but freakishly disproportionate luck the whole streak long.
And only the Grizzlys had prayed that the bomb wouldn't go off in front of them specifically.
But after 26 games, after seven full weeks, the detonator sitting at the end of that bomb's fuse finally fired.
Daegu — the team that had sold off even its own players, the team everyone had written off as hopeless this year.
They had succeeded in toppling the devil's twin, the younger brother of the monster who had torn countless fans limb from limb.
From the perspective of a fanbase on whose heads the bomb had finally detonated, veins were popping everywhere — but what could anyone do?
If they were that damn salty, they should have cut the streak off themselves, back when they still had the skill to do it.
"Even if we'd cut it off, wouldn't we still be the 'team that allowed it'?"
Granted — even in the version where they'd won, they'd have been "the idiots who won."
"Still, at least we wouldn't have allowed the chase."
Far better to be the idiot who won than the idiot who lost — in every possible way, it hurt less.
And as if that weren't enough, every single team fighting for 2nd place happened to lose that day.
"...We lost, but we won the pennant."
"Ah... w-well, we clinched, so it's all good! All good!"
The magic numbers had all evaporated — the situation had somehow produced laughter through tears.
While the visiting Doubles held their modest championship celebration—
over at Daegu's home stadium, countless Daegu fans were rising to their feet in a standing ovation.
Clap clap clap clap....
"You are the defeated! What a thrilling fall!"
Applauding, heckling the shattered team, cheering at the top of their lungs, showering the newly crowned champions with flower petals.
Things had gotten so good-natured that the delighted Daegu front office even treated their guests to a fireworks display.
FWOOOSH--!! Bang. Ba-ba-BANG...!!
"...Are these bastards seriously shooting fireworks for us?"
Noh In-seong stared up, dumbfounded, at the riotously decorated sky over Daegu.
Really. He'd pulled more than his share of insane stunts in his day — but madness on the organizational level? That was a first.