Want to Try Getting Crushed Too?

Jin Dong-ha's mind was slowly fading into fog.

His team was getting absolutely demolished today, which was irritating enough — and the fact that they were being beaten senseless by his own former team made it worse.

Having to watch a rookie whose face he barely recognized back in the old days run his mouth and then start launching home runs over the fence made his head swim.

And the other thing that really burned him up was that there wasn't just one of those bastards — there were two. Where the hell did this one even come from?

While Dong-ha had been sweating it out as a backup, grinding away in the minors, this guy who'd been toiling down in the second team had suddenly burst onto the scene and gone back-to-back.

It was only the top of the third inning, and the score was already 8–0.

He already wanted to cry over the score alone — and to top it off, the opponent was a lunatic whose talent scaled perfectly with his toxicity.

The bastard standing on the mound, radiating 'How DARE you run your mouth at me! I suppose I'll have to hold a grand massacre today!' from every pore.

"You dare flap your gums at ME?! Allow me to book you a one-way ticket on the express train straight to the bottom of the standings!" ...No, really. A bastard who actually says that.

Noh In-seong had stomped the opponent's at-bats into the dirt through three innings without surrendering a single hit.

And the moment the ninth batter made an out, the little punk turned toward the opposing dugout and performed his ceremony right in the manager's face — which meant this inning was going to be a long one.

The advantage of a long inning: the opposing team's psyche slowly disintegrates.

The disadvantage of a long inning: their psyche is now so close to clinical breakdown that God only knows what they might do.

"What? Why are you throwing a tantrum, Ramen Man?"

"Look at the score! Why are you doing a ceremony?!"

At his next at-bat, as Noh In-seong rounded the bases after yet another home run, Jin Dong-ha grabbed him by the leg at home plate.

Home runs in three consecutive at-bats. A rookie had set the record, and if he went on to add any more monuments to it, it would be a glorious milestone worth celebrating —

— except the run differential had gotten absurd. It was already 14–0 by the fifth.

Every single starter in the lineup had at least one hit to his name.

Things had gotten so out of hand that even the Doubles' most notorious weak bats — Pi Jeong-doo, Kim Jun-soo, and Lim Jae-min — were tasting a multi-hit game for the first time in ages.

And in the middle of all this, Noh In-seong, owner of three home runs, hurls his bat skyward and starts raging about how he didn't run hard enough to first. So who, exactly, was going to catch the blame?

It was infuriating — and yet there wasn't a single leg to stand on.

After all, no regulation against this sort of thing had ever actually been written into the rulebook! That's exactly why they'd had to call it an "unwritten rule" and settle it by mutual agreement instead.

It mattered, too, that the Marines hadn't managed to send a single runner to first base all game, and that Noh In-seong had racked up twelve total bases in three at-bats today.

If a bench-clearing broke out here, all they'd get out of it was a few players gone from the roster and a fresh coat of petty-team paint on the franchise's name.

In the end, with nothing accomplished on either side, the umpires stepped in to mediate, and the game seemed set to resume in a half-hearted muddle.

"A bastard like you should've ended up injured and out of the lineup, just like that bastard yesterday."

...That is, he would say that — at the top of the eighth inning, stepping into the box against Noh In-seong.

The opposing team's new pitcher walked me on four straight balls, bringing my consecutive-home-run streak to an end.

A bit gutless, but hey. I could let that much slide.

But I still had my records on the pitching side left to collect.

Noh In-seong had already thrown 96 pitches through seven innings, but measured against the record currently in progress, that was a trivial detail.

At this point, even the front office couldn't do a thing — recommendations be damned, neither the players nor the manager could rein him in.

Who knew what percentage of what remained of his pitching career he was sacrificing, but this was a monumental record every pitcher dreamed of making at least once.

And that record —

"Kgh—!"

One of the opposing players had run his mouth one time too many today, and now he'd erased himself from the history books via a self-inflicted beaning.

The searing shock that rippled through him on impact. The batter now wearing a 105.7 mph fastball as the price of one careless flap of the lips.

As Jin Dong-ha hit the ground — convulsing, nearly seizing — howling in agony,

"Manager, the record's already broken anyway, so I'll just come off the mound."

"...There's still a no-hitter on the line?"

When Jung Im-taek climbed the mound, Noh In-seong huddled behind his glove and hatched a little conspiracy.

"Look, if I keep pitching after this, people are just going to say it was tainted somehow, right?"

And then he muttered, oh, and there's another reason too.

"...Fine. Got it. Come down. If we want the team no-hitter, I suppose I'd better send Jinhong up."

Handing the ball off to Jung Im-taek, Noh In-seong was pulled from the game.

Nothing much happened after that.

Jin Dong-ha, who'd taken the ball and howled in agony, was replaced by a catcher who bore no resemblance to anything resembling a competent backup.

Combined with Busan's hopeless defense, which cheerfully compounded additional runs inning after inning, the result was a magnificent synergy.

"Well, the run differential was already hopeless."

"Yeah, it's a tie in the record books anyway."

The fuse of a defeat so catastrophic that not even this brand of coping self-delusion was possible — and the final result burned down to something staggering.

23–0. The largest margin of defeat in franchise history had been reproduced.

But everyone knew the truth: it wasn't thank God it didn't get broken! —

Making it doubly tragic, really — they hadn't managed so much as a single hit while getting gleefully hammered into paste.

Quite the generous change, considering the mistake had been nothing more than poking the wrong madman.

Of course, the ones carrying on online were only the casual fans.

At the stadium itself, the die-hard faithful, who had witnessed the whole thing with their own eyes, shook the team bus while screaming hand over the manager or we'll roast him alive, went off to fetch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠charcoal briquettes from a nearby barbecue joint and had to be physically restrained,

and when the manager finally emerged to a hail of curses and screams... the fury, already several tiers beyond your standard WWE hearing, raged on for over two hours.

In the end, the police had to arrive, and it was only after an escort flanked them front and back — 'Not that we want to, but we do have to transport you' —

that the Busan squad finally managed to slip away.

The opposite side, however, wasn't exactly slipping away easily either.

"Noh In-seong, you lost your perfect game with two outs remaining when a batter got hit by a pitch. How does that feel?"

"I was deeply saddened that that pathetic bastard's backside got traded away for my perfect game. Luck wasn't on my side either."

Actually, he had no intention whatsoever of slipping away easily. Noh In-seong answered every single question with the utmost sincerity.

"You clocked 170.1 km/h, breaking your own record for the fastest pitch in KBO history. Reports say there was still room left in the tank?"

"Oh, no. You just give up on command entirely and aim in the general direction, and anyone can throw like that."

What he swallowed back was the follow-up: against the greatest wild-thrower in the universe, whose ball could hit any spot and none, sure, that works.

"Why did you come off the mound in the middle of a no-hit, no-run bid? The record was still live."

"The mood was already dead, and since the Marines had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠offended me personally, it only seemed right to go ahead and smash their record for them?"

The team no-hitter had, until now, been a record held exclusively by Busan — and he made sure to inform them that it was no longer theirs alone.

"Plus, our bullpen ace is my bro Jinhong anyway, so I can also go 'wow, your pitchers are amazing' as a little mic drop. Win-win, right?"

Every word dripping with the deepest affection, Noh In-seong raked the Busan fans' nerves raw.

The next day. Back in Seoul, lying in his own room, Noh In-seong was drafting his rest-day master plan.

"Man, two rest days in a row. What should I do tomorrow?"

Like any office worker suddenly gifted an unplanned vacation, he sprawled across his bed at a lazy mid-morning hour —

while his mother moved with urgent, frantic purpose around him.

"In-seong, if you've got nothing to do, get out of the house and go play somewhere instead of rotting in the corner of your room while I clean!"

"Ugh, what on earth is going on..."

"You didn't know? Siyeon's homeroom teacher is visiting today."

What — a home visit?

"And so surely, the father figure of a perfect specimen like me could only serve as a shining example of character development for little Siyeon—"

When the mop came flying at his face, he dodged with reflexes alone his head could be proud of, then fled to avoid a second throw.

"I mean, you don't actually need to kick me out of the house for that..."

"OUT! Siyeon's homeroom teacher is a Grizzlies fan!"

Ugh, dammit. It's hopeless. Completely hopeless. Watching my own sister's homeroom teacher is beyond me — am I really a Noh, or was I born a Hong?

"Oh, and don't come back until this evening. We're treating the teacher to dinner."

Am I a slave or something?

Banished from his own home with nowhere to go and nothing to do, he walked himself into exhaustion and flopped onto a bench in front of some office building.

He was staring blankly ahead when a man emerged from the smoking booth beside the building. Hang on — wasn't that face familiar?

"Huh? Oh! HEY! Noh In-seong!"

"...Hmm...? OH! You're that bastard, Deok Jin-man!"

My old high school battery partner — the friend who'd left the baseball team before senior year, saying he had to take over the family business.

And there stood Deok Jin-man, wearing glasses and a suit, neither of which suited ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him in the slightest.

After the usual catch-up — how's life, how's that, knew you'd end up like this at a ballpark, and so on —

"Hey, In-seong. Any interest in shooting a commercial?"

My friend made me a business offer. Oh, right. This guy's the boss's son, isn't he.

The next day, when everyone else had left for Daegu.

I stood alone against a green screen, delivering my line.

"Want to try getting crushed too?"

Cut! Cut!

"Noh In-seong, that's a bit too... how do I put this. You keep generating this wholesome, upstanding image."

"What? I bleached my head white, I'm wearing a black suit, I've got my face scowled — what more do you want?"

What next, carve a knife scar across my face? Look, I'm shooting a commercial, not a noir film.

What kind of rice cake commercial is shot with an image like this anyway? What even is this product?

"Well, it's this product that applies molecular gastronomy to rice cakes..."

So, a rice cake that stays solid until it hits your mouth, then instantly dissolves into nothing from the temperature difference?

And what does that have to do with me throwing punches?

The answer only revealed itself after the shoot, when I watched the making-of film they'd prepped in advance.

The moment I threw my punch, it cut to a CG sequence of a rice cake bursting apart into powder.

Ah-ha. Dammit. So that's why the lines connected.

I'd been about to complain that my public image seemed to be drifting further and further off into the weeds, but —

"Is this enough for the appearance fee? I figured if you shot it, it'd turn into free noise marketing anyway, so I padded it a little."

"Oh, young master boss. Leave it all to me. As long as I'm not committing actual crimes, we're fine, no?"

"Exactly, ballplayer. Whether you bench-clear or talk trash, I gave you that concept for precisely this reason."

Helping out a friend while pocketing a fat check — honestly, what kinder, more righteous arrangement could there be?

Bought and paid for with cold, hard cash. And far too plump a sum to ever dream of refusing.

Noh In-seong's financial situation turned prosperous in very short order.