Deflecting the Bomb (Part 2)

At noon on Monday, Noh In-seong dragged himself out of bed in a tangled heap.

"...Aargh. I want to sleep more..."

He still had to pay for the buffet he'd mooched off of yesterday — and for exposing Siyeon to their mother's iron spike of a grip.

Still drunk on sleep, he washed up, then stumbled around half-blind in his attire of atonement — no, his suit — unable to figure out the tie.

"...Can I really trust this kid to go to a parent-teacher meeting as the guardian?"

His mother, frowning at the sight, marched over and cinched the black tie tight around his neck.

"Ghk—! Gkk—!! Damn it... what is WITH this grip strength...!!"

Granted, Noh In-seong complained about the asphyxiation throughout, but you'd have to be willing to listen for that to matter.

"Be polite, and don't you dare run your mouth like last time! Say you're sorry!"

"Ack...!! Air... air!! Khagh...!!"

His desperate taps drummed against her forearm — tak, tak, tak — but his mother had absolutely no intention of listening.

"Look at this, your tie's crooked! Just tell me if it's too tight, don't make that face!"

His mother's soothing nagging carried on, along with the growing certainty that if this went on any longer, he'd be attending the afterlife instead of the school.

'Son of a... I thought this was my attire for an apology. Turns out it's my funeral clothes.'

Who was he supposed to be apologizing to in the afterlife, dying all dressed up like this?

His mother's grip strength had been monstrous even during her athletic prime — thanks to that, Noh In-seong, who had nearly achieved his third reincarnation, started tapping out faster and faster.

Having flirted with strangulation since breakfast, Noh In-seong set off on today's quest: visiting the school.

Jingle-jangle.

"There we go... Hello there."

"Oh my, you came! It's been such a long time!"

First stop: the little kid's family stationery shop near the school, to pick up the power of attorney.

The shop owner bowed her head and thanked him for taking care of her son for the day.

"Oh, please take good care of our boy... I'm so sorry for all the trouble he causes you, one way or another."

"Not at all. We play together all the time anyway."

He was, after all, a comrade-in-arms who'd screwed over teams alongside him — and screwed over opposing teams too.

Since he had to do it anyway, folding the kid into the trip was just a free 1+1 deal.

While picking up the power of attorney, Noh In-seong began scooping up all the classic junk snacks only a stationery shop could offer.

That particular brand of 'munchies' you could only find at a school-gate corner store.

He still had time to kill, so the plan was to wait while stuffing his face.

"Wow, it's amazing these are still around from when I was in school."

Chewy candy with fizzing carbonation inside, cheap snacks of dubious quality.

He swept one of everything onto the counter, handed the lady a large bill, and walked out of the store.

"Hmm... still tastes decent, I guess."

Sitting on a bench near the school, killing time with snacks, the old memories came flooding back.

Eating them now left him with a strange, wistful feeling. Why on earth had he fought so desperately for a single one of these back then?

"It doesn't hit like it used to. I honestly can't figure out why this stuff tasted so incredible before."

Maybe it was because he'd grown up, gotten money in hand, and while his honor might be anyone's guess, his infamy now scraped the sky.

He was holding plenty of junk food in his hands, but that maddening, addictive old flavor seemed to be gone.

Of course, the real reason was simply that the ingredients had been banned for health reasons — but what did he know about that?

Perhaps it was the deepening autumn, but Noh In-seong found himself in a rare moment of self-reflection.

Before he knew it, his phone clock showed that fifth period was winding down.

Jingle-jangle...

"Goddamn. My mom could dodge a stroke into her nineties at this rate."

After finishing everything, he loosened the tie that was still cinched like a noose, stuffed his trash into the bin,

rose from the bench, and headed for the school's security office.

His little sister, now somehow a fourth grader, had the pitiful lot of not finishing classes until two in the afternoon.

Showing up just after lunch meant waiting around regardless — which is exactly why he'd been killing time on the bench stuffing his face with junk food.

"Well, at least it's cool out. No sweating, thank god. —Hello? Anyone there?"

Rattle.

When Noh In-seong opened the security office window, the guard seated inside stared blankly at him.

"Young man, what brings you here? You look barely old enough to drink, if you ask me."

Accustomed to dealing with visitors who were at least in their thirties, the old guard seemed startled that some fresh-faced kid had shown up for who-knew-what reason.

"No, sir, I'm here for a scheduled parent-teacher meeting?"

The guard was a man of some age, so Noh In-seong answered politely enough.

"...Sonny! What does a kid your age know about guardians and meetings? People will get the wrong idea!"

Confronted with a face that had barely reached university age, the guard flapped his hands in alarm.

"Well, actually, I'm the guardian for two of the students here..."

It was the truth. 'The little kid and his own little sister' — but a guardian he was, all the same.

"...Oh my. Well, if that's the arrangement... understood. Let me just verify."

He did need to run a check, so the old man began flipping through the ledger.

But the guard had clearly not absorbed any of that nuance.

As his fingers flitted down the pages, they landed on an actual school visit reservation — and the guard's eyes began to waver.

When he finally confirmed the visitor registry, his pupils started to quake.

"...Wha— Noh... In-seong-nim? That's really you, right?"

"Yes, that's me. You can see it yourself. My face hasn't even changed."

Mid-identity-verification, having just confirmed this man was barely old enough for university, the guard's eyes went full seismic.

"...And the two students you're meeting here... have different family names?!"

"Ah. Yes."

Hearing those last words, the old man — for some unfathomable reason — even wiped away tears.

'Was it actually true that your tear ducts get looser the older you get?'

While Noh In-seong entertained this rather rude thought, the guard handed his ID back.

"Off you go, then. Godspeed, son."

Rattle—

The barricade at the school's front gate opened just wide enough for a single person to pass.

With eyes that seemed to behold some poor, pitiable creature, the guard watched Noh In-seong's back as he walked in.

"Ugh, this takes a ridiculous amount of time. See ya around, gramps."

Noh In-seong was a man who had never once lived by anyone else's gaze — he didn't spare it a thought.

"Sigh. Tsk, tsk. Poor young man..."

The moment Noh In-seong passed through, the kids freed from fifth period came swarming out the gate.

"Ah, perfect timing. I can head in now."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Whistling leisurely, Noh In-seong headed toward his little sister's classroom and disappeared into the building.

The spot where he'd stood was instantly swarmed with people, filling the void left by one young man.

Meanwhile, the parents arriving to pick up their children saw the guard's sorrowful eyes

and couldn't help but ask.

"Is something the matter, sir? You're crying right now."

They pressed him about why on earth he was weeping, and

when the old guard finally poured out the 'sad tale' he'd constructed in his own mind—

"Oh my! Oh dear! Say no more!"

"Really? Wait, that name sounds awfully familiar though?"

The snowball of misunderstanding began careening down the hill at breakneck speed.

Thus a public record was being forged of a man who, at a tender young age, suddenly found his life an incomprehensible ruin.

Noh In-seong set out to locate the two little kids he was guardians-for-the-day over.

Upper elementary schoolers belonged to the profession where Monday had ceased to be any fun whatsoever.

These were people condemned to remain glued to the gravity well called 'school' even after lunch had ended.

"GRAAAAGH...!! It's over! Freedom at last...!!"

"Hee hee! We're free! Goodbye, you boring old school...!!"

Naturally, amid the crowd of kids trickling out at staggered intervals after homeroom—

"Oppa! Over here!"

"Hyung! Over here, over here!"

the two meeting attendees spotted the beanpole-tall Noh In-seong and waved their arms.

No matter how much the crowd jostled, a slab of muscle is simply a different size class.

A towering frame north of 190 cm was, unsurprisingly, easy to spot.

"Alright, you two are free to head home. The rest is this hyung—oppa's responsibility."

The moment those words landed, the two kids bolted.

"Kyaaa! Freedom!"

"Hee hee, straight home for me, then Minecraft all night!"

And so, as if the 'DO NOT RUN IN THE HALLWAYS' sign were merely a polite suggestion, the two of them — Siyeon and the little kid — soared away at last, liberated from the gravity of school.

"Hah... those little brats..."

In principle, a parent-teacher conference is a conversation between the guardian and the teacher.

A day of listening to lectures about how So-and-so behaves at school... how So-and-so does this and that... how So-and-so must do such-and-such...

With the student present, naturally no one can speak freely, so the kids normally go on home first.

It annoyed him a little, sure, but that was the orthodox way, so Noh In-seong had no grounds to complain.

"...How on earth did my mom survive being dragged into these endless conferences?"

Noh In-seong, who had sat through these meetings at least three times — every one accompanied by a suspension — shook his head.

For a man who had lived his school days in such spectacular infamy, it was the moment he finally located a shred of conscience.

On the other side of the equation, the homeroom teacher whose schedule had doubled from one guardian to two — Jeong Hwa-jeong — was feeling something a hair short of murderous.

Two guardians collapsing into one was technically good news.

"...But why, oh why, did it have to include THAT kid's guardian..."

Because if that guardian happened to be a lunatic, the math changed entirely.

The maniac who'd dropped his bombshell speech at school — delivered to her doorstep via express delivery, apparently?

The power of attorney that plopped down in front of her made her feel her own innards plop and collapse in sympathy.

"Well, you two know each other, don't you? It's not against the rules or anything."

No — she had been prepared to persuasively extol the merits of the vacation homework to two attentive guardians.

Now she had to wonder whether this man would even listen to a word she said.

"What persuasion could possibly work on a man who has never once done homework in his life...!!"

A man whose relationship with homework was piled up like a mountain of garbage had gone and brought a power of attorney, playing guardian.

"...That's a stereotype. What makes you think I wouldn't do my homework?"

Noh In-seong bristled at the prejudice that 'athlete' somehow implied an unfaithful school record.

"...Really? You completed your assignments faithfully, then?"

"Do I look insane enough to waste my time? Last homework I remember doing was in third grade."

The stereotype, in this particular punk's case, fit with surgical precision.

This kid was the undisputed final boss of academic delinquency. He existed on a different plane entirely from the kids who did half their vacation packet, or lazily skipped a mere quarter of it.

"I figured as much. Ugh, I know full well you went to this school too! Your banners are still flying around!"

This was his alma mater after all — no baseball team, granted, but his alma mater all the same.

One quick click away lay the notification letters and report cards of his era, drenched in the tears of his long-suffering homeroom teachers.

Among the countless notices: 'HOMEWORK UNPAID,' 'UN-FAITH-FUL,' 'WHEN WILL THE HOMEWORK EVER COME...' 'AND YET THE TEST SCORES ARE EXCELLENT...'

All manner of florid, despairing prose filled those pages to the brim.

Noh In-seong gazed upon his own school-day transcripts for the first time in ages — and shamelessly stuck out his thumb.

"But my test scores were perfect, weren't they?"

The problem was, this punk genuinely ranked at the very top in exams, meaning that net result-wise, he'd placed solidly upper-mid.

"Aaargh, this makes me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even angrier."

Why did this man have so many escape routes? Jeong Hwa-jeong clutched her head.

For a results-first student handing her a freshly served plate of crap, she was in genuine agony.

In the end, Jeong Hwa-jeong couldn't even extract the guardian's solemn vow of 'this will never happen again.'

"If this happens again, I'll be coming to this school once more, so help me—"

"—Agh! Please. PLEASE don't come...!!"

Instead, she found herself on the receiving end of threats.

How had things come to this wretched pass for her? Jeong Hwa-jeong mourned her fate.

"...But skipping homework is a bit wrong, don't you think?"

She'd at least attempted the appeal-to-conscience play, and received an answer that transcended common sense.

"Nope. It's called free will — the freedom to wreck your own life is precious."

"What are you even saying?!"

Noh In-seong was already crawling above and beyond the normal boundaries of human common sense.

"It's like asking a teacher, 'If I made you build study materials you hate, would you do it happily?'

"I'd do it because it's my job!"

"Right. And do those kids get paid for doing that garbage? What do they get out of it?"

And even if they did it, what actually improved? All that happened was another annoying chore got stacked on top.

Aside from gleaning a scrap of knowledge here and there, wasn't it utterly useless?

"Any scrap of knowledge you could get from AI anyway. School's something you should just attend for fun."

With the tide of the era steadily eroding the utility of human knowledge, it wasn't an entirely wrong argument.

"Even so, they take tests on what you learn at school!"

To Jeong Hwa-jeong's relentless pushback,

"Right — so if they ace the test, they've earned the meeting. Isn't a flawless test proof they didn't skip anything that matters?"

At that, Noh In-seong thundered that he would personally stand guard, club in hand, to protect that principle.

And so, having failed to push a single shred of her own conviction through on the homework front, Jeong Hwa-jeong hung her head deep,

and that day's conference came to an end.

The one consolation for Jeong Hwa-jeong was this:

"...Oh my. Both of them, their study habits have improved?"

At least, unlike before, the two kids were now listening in class with bright, clear, focused eyes.

'You two. If you don't crack the top 10% on absolute grading this time, the moment you skip homework, I'm bringing your parents in. Both sets.'

'Oppa, no! What is that even supposed to mean?!'

'H-hyung?!'

The shield Noh In-seong had provided covered one area only: homework.

'Come to think of it, these brats ace ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their tests while you two are out here gleefully freeloading? That's pissing me off.'

A grim warning — get your grades wrecked and he'd come down on them with the shield as a club — descended upon both kids.

"Hnnng... I hate you, oppa."

"Ugh, I'm an idiot for ever trusting you, hyung..."

The normalization of study habits.

Noh In-seong had made the two of them study hard — not for the process, but for the result.

The next day, Noh In-seong's eyes opened early.

His condition was flawless, so of course it was.

"Thank you for the meal!"

"My goodness. This is the kid who's either asleep at this hour or nodding off into his rice every single morning. What's gotten into him?"

He chewed through the breakfast his mother had made — she was genuinely impressed he'd gotten up — without leaving a grain,

"Maybe I'll bike to work today?"

With plenty of time to spare, he sweated out a commute on two wheels for the first time in ages. A refreshing morning.

"That's my cardio done for the day. Should I do legs today, maybe?"

Which body part to destroy today...? Just as he was mulling it over—

"Noh In-seong, sir! Just how old were you when you had these children?!"

A voice of pure insanity — the kind that wrecks a man's life plans — drilled straight into his ear.

The reporters were spouting nonsense again.

"What?! What did you just say?! This is the garbage you open with first thing in the morning...!!"

A reporter had just claimed, out of nowhere, that two more direct blood relatives had been added to his family tree.

"You attended a parent-teacher meeting as the guardian of two elementary school children?! And I hear they're in the upper grades of elementary school!"

So when exactly had he knocked somebody up? That insane insinuation made Noh In-seong gag in disbelief.

"Knock somebody up? How about I knock YOU up — right in that face of yours?!"

Who was blocking whose life here?! Come at me, any of you, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'll take you all on!

But if it had ended at merely this, would these reporters even qualify as people whose brains misfire?

They say if you can split a bolt of lightning, you must at least move at the speed of light.

"KAHAHAHA!! The view counters are spinning like copy machines!! From this moment on, it is MY eraaaat---!!"

For the first time in ages, the men who had fired up the view-count photocopiers were drenched in euphoria.

"...Um... Editor-in-chief, sir? Is it really all right to write it like this?"

"I KNOW the man has no children! That's why I only wrote facts!"

The rest, he reasoned, people's imaginations would happily fill in — a masterfully malicious article.

It was a flawless weave, sidestepping the lawsuit uppercut of Noh In-seong entirely.

And so, with the entire nation suddenly correcting Noh In-seong's marital status to 'family man,'

at the final home series of the season against Changwon,

a fully enraged Noh In-seong swung his bat faster than he ever had in his life.

CRACCKKKK---!!

"Ohhh!! That ball! It ricochets off the ceiling and drops! Noh In-seong's 60th home run of the season explodes right here--!!"

"He's retrieving his own ball, ladies and gentlemen--!! Yes, the fans in the stands are in mourning! There's simply no catching it!"

A home run tying the Asian record — it had soared to the heavens, only to drop right back down into the outfield.

Booooooo---!!

Amid a storm of jeers from the crowd, all of whom had hoped to catch the ball and auction it off for grocery money,

Noh In-seong rounded the bases and vented his fury.

"GRAAAAGH---!! I will have my revenge on those son-of-a-bitch bastards!! And that security guard too!!"

Against the reporters he'd been beating down all this time, it was a massive, squarely landed counter — the first in ages.

For the first time, Noh In-seong, all but utterly routed, raised his rage to the heavens.

The next day, Changwon was served a clean four-for-four at the plate.

"Aigoo, that lunatic is killing our rookie's ERA!"

The murderer of pitchers' dignity, Noh In-seong, went hunting for his next sacrificial lamb to dilute his own emotional wounds.

"...Ugh, and of course it has to be our game — his thirty-sixth straight!"

The Bear, who had been battered day after day after day, looked at the madman standing in the box before him — and froze in horror.