2. The Busan Grinder

In Korea, if you want to become a baseball player, there is one act you absolutely cannot skip.

"Ugh, I hate wearing a school uniform..."

You have to enroll in high school. Incredible as it sounds, that really is a mandatory course.

High schools run their own leagues, host their own tournaments, and — bada-bing! — the dregs and rot of the baseball world, the so-called core baseball fans, come flocking to watch.

"Our team will be drafting you, so please, please keep growing nice and strong...!! After all, we're a team that can draft literally anyone!"

"Buhuhu, how tragic..."

Then, after enthusiastically flushing a season down the toilet, the league's losers — dreaming of snagging a prized prospect — come to draft the champions of high school baseball, which is all part of the same set.

The fact that the teams who can't play are the ones who get to acquire the better players is a little hard to wrap my head ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠around, but that's roughly how it works.

Of course, there might conceivably be another path — graduate middle school, enter the workforce early, dominate corporate league baseball, and appeal directly to the clubs that way...

"Oh my, how could anyone in this country possibly skip high school?! You're going to embarrass the whole neighborhood!"

SMACK---!!

"GYAAAAH--!!"

A line that holds no water on this mad peninsula, where the average scholastic achievement could, at some point, be described as university-adjacent.

In other words: my very first plan had failed before it even started.

"...Ugh, there's a handprint. It's going to bruise by tomorrow."

And on top of that, the skin on my back was wrecked too.

This life's mother was a somewhat kinder person, which was exactly why I'd let my guard down.

"I think our Inseong should ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠do whatever it is he wants to do!"

That's what she said back in elementary school, too busy raising my little sister to pay me any real attention.

"I think our Inseong will end up in prison doing what he wants to do!"

The moment I entered middle school, she flipped like a switch, and suddenly everything I wanted to do got blocked on sight.

Noh In-seong was wailing 'This is so unfair! So unfair!' — but from the mother's side of the fence, it wasn't entirely without justification.

"Then how about behaving! Do you have any idea how many times I've been called into that school?!"

"......"

It had been a whole three days since a first-year middle schooler put on his uniform and walked through the gates. Called in among the parents within three days, arriving at the school's faculty office — surely your trust in him was overflowing by then.

It was a summons speed that would have knocked Pontius Pilate flat on his back, but honestly, it had been part of the plan all along.

Every single year, when the new students arrive, the seniors bend them over their knee — isn't that the school baseball club's... a sort of sacred tradition?

"Oh my, was that a thing? It wasn't like that in elementary school."

"...That was just a baseball class, remember."

In elementary school, baseball had only ever come to him through the ordinary kind of baseball class — a kids' group run by some retired former pro. Then he'd plunged straight into the reality of competition: the jungle of starting-lineup battles and survival of the fittest. No wonder his mother was shocked.

Of course, the competition hadn't been fair.

Every year, when the new students arrive, the seniors bend them over their knee — isn't that the school baseball club's... a sort of sacred tradition?

If the skilled guys at the top used it to whip the lazy slackers at the bottom into shape, Noh In-seong wouldn't have had a word of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠complaint.

"But they're actually using it to drag down the ankles of the guys who can play, just because they can't keep up themselves. So, whatever."

Noh In-seong — a guy who would have pretended to listen no matter what anyone said — had precisely zero reason to play along with that brand of hazing.

But the seniors had judged that Noh In-seong, a male specimen included in this year's incoming class, was also someone who rightfully needed to be bent over a knee.

And so they called him out to a quiet, secluded corner behind the teachers' building.

"Hey. Noh In-seong. You're one hell of a cocky little punk. Can't get your head on straight? Just because we seniors have been playing nice with you, you think we're soft?"

Voices lowered, numbers on their side, no CCTV — a quiet corner of campus with six against one?

For any ordinary person, a combination that would have them trembling in their shoes.

"Ha! You're talking out of your asses. Are you punks insane?"

With a perfectly calm face, Noh In-seong — in the great era of erupting hormones, at the very threshold of puberty — let his temper fly freely.

What the seniors wanted was simple. I got broken in, so you get broken in too.

"Then it works out great, doesn't it?! A year apart, we rotate the starting spot — everybody wins...!!"

In a sense, a WWE exchange of equivalents — the seniors who simply didn't want to lose their starting jobs had just wanted a little more time.

"You're full of shit! If you can't play, get lost! You're blocking my path to the future... no, wait, that's past-life business. Anyway, die!"

Operating on pure 'who the hell do you think you are' energy, Noh In-seong proceeded to beat down the senior who happened to occupy his position — along with the rest of them.

Six to one. Surveillance cameras? What surveillance cameras. The guys who took the beating were now facing a situation where they'd have to quit baseball out of sheer humiliation.

"Ha! Idiots. Worked out great."

Fan or senior or whatever else, he wore a beaming grin while firing off 'good riddance' after 'good riddance' — so naturally, the baseball club's atmosphere went absolutely spectacular.

"...Fine. You're the starting shortstop."

The half-enlightened manager handed the shortstop job over to Noh In-seong.

And of course, when a rolling stone shoves the embedded stone right out of its socket, making enemies was a given.

"Hey, are you insane? Since when does a cocky first-year get to talk back—"

The seniors began openly keeping him in check — but that still wasn't a reason for Noh In-seong to roll over.

Poke!

"GUAAAAH---!!"

He had clearly signaled for a splitter — and the third-year starting catcher, the one who'd talked back about the pitch selection just because of his precious age?

Noh In-seong graciously taught him the grip so thoroughly it was engraved into his eyeballs — he genuinely almost went for the eye, but waited until the kid squeezed them shut before pressing it in.

"Aigo, don't get all high and mighty over one decent play, rookie. Got it?"

He'd caught the ball on a slide, popped straight up, and fired it to first — and this is what the pitcher bastard had to say about it?

"Aigo, does a bastard who threw ten decent pitches and got tattooed for two home runs get to have an opinion?! You pitching bastard."

"Wh... what?!"

Mid-game or not, a verbal missile went screaming straight for the mound.

Equally noteworthy was the thoughtfulness with which, from his shortstop position, he extended his middle finger alongside his thumb in a gesture of heartfelt praise.

And naturally, this consideration was extended generously to the opposing team as well.

Tried to paint the corners inside on him and ended up plunking him instead?

Whoosh---!!

"SAFE! SAFE!"

He sprinted like a madman, and the instant his hand touched home plate he sprang straight up like a coiled spring.

"SIUUUUUUUU!"

A mid-air 180-degree turn, both hands slamming downward — a ceremony that dominated the entire stadium.

"That psycho bastard..."

Straight to second, then third — and the sheer audacity to steal home the very moment a pitcher's slow-curveball tell revealed itself.

Admittedly, imitating the GOAT of primates and the JOAT of humanity once triggered a bench-clearing brawl in a practice game.

But what could anyone say to a kid who took the mound as a starter, blanked the opposition for five and a third innings, got pulled, moved to shortstop, shut down the decisive rally —

— and then capped it all off by successfully stealing home to end the game?

Breaking him in? Impossible.

Senior privilege only holds when that senior's know-how or ability is overwhelmingly, undeniably superior.

Could a kid who took complete ownership of a game and ran it exactly how he pleased, start to finish, possibly catch the eye of a middle-school senior?

The instincts that let a man rot and still survive until thirty-eight in pro baseball were, for the middle schoolers of this era, a disaster in its purest form.

By the time he entered his retirement season, the pitching ligaments ground away in his early career no longer functioned at all.

They were nothing but dead tissue existing to keep the arm attached — and yet he'd survived an entire season on defense alone. Think about what that means.

"Look, even I was bottom-feeders in a league of geniuses. How many of you think you could so much as crack open the door to pro ball?"

The muscles he needed for hitting were withering, his bat speed had slowed to the point where — guess-hitting aside — fastballs were simply unattackable.

Eye-hand coordination? Don't make me laugh. Old batters accumulate experience, not eyesight.

Even in that state he'd clung to the very bottom rung of professional baseball — so with this body, how well could he possibly do?

This fresh, vigorous body of his belonged to a different potential class entirely than retirement-season Jung In-seong — no, than Jung In-seong's entire career put together.

Stamina not just young but young. Eyes sharp and clear. Muscle that packed on with a little exercise.

And his defensive skills were already elite.

His defensive game was little more than a showcase with one message: I can cover every one of you pitchers out there.

The pitching talent of his early pro years? If only his shoulder hadn't been chewed up from high school straight through his rookie contract, that's where he would have shone brightest.

"That insane bastard of a manager treated grinding the bullpen into dust like it was the most natural thing in the world."

A survivor of the last era where inning abuse was standard practice — and its single biggest victim — grumbled under his breath.

Noh In-seong was confident that, in this life at least, raw physical talent alone would carry him into the professional realm.

"With a body like this, I can afford to be a little dim! Pros? I'll just get drafted, easy."

When you're one hundred percent certain of success, why on earth would you submit to pointless military discipline? Sunbae, hoobae? At the professional level, everyone is an independent contractor.

If a guy got mad because you threw a fastball at his body, you could flip him the bird right there on the mound and it'd end with a fine and nothing more.

Inside a pro organization, even accounting for relatively little clout, Noh In-seong — a man who had accumulated nearly twenty years' worth of seniority — was never going to bow to any sunbae.

Noh In-seong already knew the score.

"So my character's a bit rotten? As long as you don't quite cross the line into crime, and you stay out of trouble off the field, that's all it takes."

A sports star can be a complete thug and still scrape by — as long as he stops just short of being an actual criminal.

After all, how else would his old coworkers have survived all those postseason massacre after massacre?

Of course, the manager had a splitting headache — but he soon accepted that this kid was the greatest work his school would ever present to society.

"You won't do it again, right?"

"No, sir."

In other words: despite a generous helping of lunatic behavior, he'd even smoothed over the furious reactions of the other club members' mothers.

"Good. Let's do great things."

He wasn't a pro yet — there was no need to squeeze out staged, toothy photo-op smiles for anyone.

"...In-seong. Is this really okay?"

"You know perfectly well that talented people get a pass for all sorts of personality problems, Mom."

His mother had come in for the parent conference, quietly terrified of what might one day be written beneath her child's report card.

For now, Noh In-seong was genuinely, sincerely grateful for this country's pathetic legal system.

"Who the hell brings a knife to threaten a juvenile into a fistfight, anyway?"

Of course, once he graduated middle school, he'd curse Korea's legal framework as a failure all over again.

But right now? Right now it was god—law.

And so, time kept flowing onward.

And faster still, the rumors of Noh In-seong came flowing in with it.

...Whether that counts as a glowing evaluation was unclear — but skill-wise, at least, there were no questions. A winning lottery ticket, prize already confirmed.

The countless viewers who watched professional baseball — and among them, the viewers scraping along the bottom of the standings year after year.

And among those viewers, the ones who ran every calculation of shame, comparison, and cold mathematics.

People climbing the long, foolish hill that separates the average fan from the expert.

"""Whoa. This kid is the real deal?!"""

All of their eyes converged on Noh In-seong.

Not the gaudy numbers. They'd seen those plenty of times before.

Somebody hitting .500 or .600 in the high school leagues? So what?

Only a fraction of those geniuses ever survive — that is Korean professional baseball.

Even the guy shakiest on his own big-league roster was, back in high school, someone who once handed out despair and envy in equal measure to everyone around him.

Hitting, to put it charitably, means very little until you reach the pros and learn to separate low-level power from game power, tools from skills.

"But unchanging tools — defense, stolen bases, that's a different animal!"

Because things like fielding percentage are, at minimum, a guarantee that the player won't be a total bust.

To the people capable of breaking down tools and skills, Noh In-seong wore the label of certified monster.

To the borderline-expert obsessives who could break down DRS/UZR while chuckling, he looked like a player who simply could not be found anywhere else in the country — in an entirely different sense.

And to the handful of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠people who measured Statcast-tier metrics like OAA — the kind requiring specialized equipment — out of their own pockets,

"What are you doing, you idiot? Why haven't you drafted him?"

By then, the imprint had already been stamped in: a core defender capable of anchoring your team's next ten years.

"""With just this one kid, we could finally dump our error-manufacturing machine of a shortstop!"""

And the vast majority of those people were fans — or scouts — of teams whose defense was catastrophic across the entire infield, outfield included.

Supply creates demand. The old law was alive and well.

"...But what happens if we draft this bastard and he pulls that same garbage in the pros?"

"....!!!"

Because from the clubs' point of view, Noh In-seong was beyond a poisoned grail — he was a teacup laced with polonium.

"What, did you swap your eyeballs for candy ones before looking at the pitch? That was ball four, right there, and you can't see it? You absolute moron."

"...!!!"

Delivering life-negating insults — the kind that deny your entire existence — whenever the umpire glanced away after you so much as said one word to him? Daily routine.

These were the days when broadcast camera drones could film the shape of your mouth in pristine detail.

An era where 4K counted as low resolution. High-definition cameras were everywhere, creeping in right under people's noses.

"...Let's just be thankful nobody's asking you how you 'manage your juniors'..."

A lunatic whose clips still circulate on the internet even now, in his third year of high school.

Every time he opened his mouth, the sight of something welling up in the opposing catcher's eyes, face flushing crimson, was broadcast live to the nation.

Just look at last spring's Phoenix Flag finals.

"SPLIT THAT BASTARD'S BAT! How can a ball travel THAT far!"

When the opposing manager — trying to console his own pitcher, who'd just been bombed for two home runs — attempted a bat inspection on suspicion of a doctored bat,

whether he genuinely believed it was bat-tampering, or he simply felt like being a sore loser, no one could say.

"Alright! Here comes another one! Your school's honor! Your school baseball club's honor! And THIS — this is your job after the game--!!"

He grabbed a bat from one of his own team's other hitters, drilled three consecutive home runs across as many plate appearances, then flipped the bat.

Stepping on home plate, he strolled straight into the opposing dugout to personally deliver his role model's ceremony — the one that matched his character exactly — right up close,

"SIUUUUUUU---!!"

"...Noh In-seong. Ejected for interfering with the game."

"Haha, it's 8-1 anyway. What exactly are you going to do about it?"

He got ejected with his head held high.

And in the postgame interview, he even expressed concern for the opposing manager's dementia:

"I understand completely. He's an old man, so his thinking has calcified. I know all too well how gloomy people get right before retirement."

Claiming retirement seemed near and it broke his heart, he even went so far as to attempt a teabag.

"...The opposing manager is only forty-one..."

"Well, what kind of managing could he possibly do with skills like those? Go carry some lumber somewhere."

Right down to the career counseling — flawless aftercare, escorting a grown man straight to rock bottom.

Bring that into the professional league? He wouldn't just be a superstar. He'd be the superstar, in the flesh.

"Every single day, that one bastard is going to blow the fan forums sky-high!"

Sing his praises all you wanted — they'd be lucky if he didn't start an actual brawl inside the stadium.

Instead of respecting elders, respecting friends — no, not even that. A player who would opt for a far shorter abbreviation, which also meant he could turn on his own side just as easily.

For the teams already ruefully rated as having team chemistry like loose grains of sand...

'The moment that bastard arrives, this team could disintegrate in midair.'

'No, seriously — he seems exactly like the kind of guy who'd tell the media our manager has dementia for taking a single day off...'

A powerful wave of anxiety hit them: this was nitroglycerin being poured into their sandy clubhouse.

Meaning one spark on the fuse and the entire team would physically scatter to the four winds —

and meaning that even after drafting him, they'd be forced to bolt clause after clause onto his contract to contain the potential bomb.

"...Goddammit, and we can't not draft him...!!"

But pass on him? If talent like that went to another team and pulled all those stunts there, what would have been the point of holding a high draft slot?

This year, once again, as though they'd sealed their season's results into the sea off Busan with a load of cement, the team had claimed yet another first overall pick.

And so the Busan Marines began racking their brains all over again.

Throwing games you were going to lose anyway, while hunting for the load-bearing pillar that will carry your team for the next seven years — or longer.

Its name: Tanking.

"You useless bastards, WIN A GAME!"

"...Ugh! We NEED prospects, I'm telling you!?"

A perfectly accurate name, in that it makes a team's fans contemplate purchasing a tank instead of a truck.

Of course, if you confronted the clubs, they'd only insist they were doing their absolute best!

In truth, everyone knows exactly what's going on. Because there's no way a team could be that bad by accident.

What else would explain the saying that a certain seaside team — and a certain inland team — making the fall playoffs was a sign of the apocalypse?

"Yahaha! Our school is the best---!!"

Entirely ignoring the manager still drunk on the joy of hoisting his second Phoenix Flag,

"And now, today's game MVP — player Noh In-seong!"

Having swept the daily award, the tournament MVP, and the outstanding pitcher prize all at once, the interview began.

In his past life, interviews happened once a year — twice, if he was extraordinarily unlucky.

"We keep running into each other these days, don't we?"

Was she in high spirits because they kept meeting? Or because she hadn't seen a single soul reach first base against him for nine innings? Or had the pretty young announcer — kind enough to smile and treat him warmly, though he was barely older than her students — simply set his teenage hormones off?

"...Right, well, someone told me something interesting. That Busan is going to draft me."

"That's probably how it'll go, yes."

The team that had finished dead last — tenth, or as the pick is known, 'first' — once every seven years, and lately hadn't stopped cashing that pick in at all.

One of the two rotten engines of Korean baseball, down there at the bottom alongside Daejeon.

The Busan Marines.

"Honestly? Rather than go to Busan, wouldn't it be better to just leave the country entirely?"

"...Excuse me?"

And so the day had arrived: a student who had only just become a high school senior was being told, in essence, better to die than go to Busan.