Noh In-seong Cantabile
Even though he'd studied the scouting video beforehand — knew the fastballs were coming, knew the opponent worked mostly up and in — for the majority of the Doubles players, this kind of pitching was something they were seeing for the very first time.
The brain was screaming, 'You idiot, get the hell out of that line NOW!' while the eyes were filing a correction: 'Are you stupid? No! That one's a fake!' The hands, supposed to coordinate the two, were flailing somewhere in between: 'So who exactly is running this operation right now?!'
"Strike! Batter's out!"
Fifteen two-seam fastballs, every one as magnificent as his crooked nose and crooked personality, delivered after a bottle's worth of liquor. He didn't need a single pitch more than that to close out the first inning. End of the frame — sides switch.
Song Jin-wook trudged back to the dugout with a hollow look on his face, still gripping the middle of his bat.
"Whew... this is not gonna be easy."
"In-seong, you held your own out there though. How'd you do it?"
While Song Jin-wook set his bat down and sorted out his knocked-askew helmet, Sung Hyun-tak cinched his glove tight and threw the question at me.
"Held my own how? The ball comes, I see it, I hit it. That's all."
"Agh, you absolute lunatic. Skip the bullshit — give me a tip that's actually useful."
After the usual nonsense no real coach would ever spout, a genuinely useful tip did surface.
"Then just lean in and take one off the body. Don't you dare flinch worrying about getting plunked."
"Hm...? That's it?"
That's it? That's it?! Do you have any idea how big a tip that is? Just you wait — one day you'll tremble in awe at my coaching genius.
Purely on the raw velocity of the pitches leaving his hand, he was a strictly superior model. The opponent was thirty years old; this one was nineteen. A rookie whose developmental ceiling was converging toward infinity — and naturally, his value existed on a different plane entirely.
And that gem of a different value now glowed brilliantly, flaunting that talent for all to see. Of course, the glow was slightly radioactive-green, getting hit by it hurt, and it came with side effects in every possible sense — but still.
"Strike!"
"Oof, crazy bastard. Here we go again."
The opposing batter spat onto the dirt. Why did it feel like that guy threw harder every single time you looked at him?
He'd sensed the danger and yanked his body backward, but the result was ugly.
The commentator meant it as a joke for everyone to laugh at, but it took exactly one more pitch to turn his words into Cassandra's prophecy.
"Don't look at me like that. You're making me lose my nerve."
Those eyes were so big and doleful they could've belonged to a lamb — one more glance and anyone would think I was the one in the wrong here. Excuse me, but wasn't it your starting pitcher who first came asking my body whether pitching like that was acceptable?
Not that I'm claiming a baseball coming straight at my ribs isn't threatening. It is. That's the whole point.
I re-gripped the two-seam. But this time I choked up harder on the seams.
Noh In-seong closed out the inning with thirteen two-seam fastballs total.
Then, on his way down off the mound, he raised two fingers toward the opposing dugout.
A V-sign — knuckles facing forward.
"Tch... so everyone's getting struck out by that slack-jawed little brat, and nobody's even angry? What exactly are they doing?"
"Alves, that slack-jawed little brat is one of the best starting pitchers in this league right now."
"Do people here not have a single ounce of fighting spirit? He's really a brat? Just got drafted?"
There was a man in the corner of the dugout, jacket on, continuously tipping a flask to his lips and grumbling his displeasure at the world. Every line exchanged between Alves and the interpreter came out in Spanish, and not a single player on the team understood it precisely.
What in God's name is that lunatic saying... ninyo? Brat?
But a few players caught the gist, picking out words here and there. Each team carried three foreign players, after all — and the fact that Español, Spanish, was a thoroughly mainstream language even in America counted for a lot.
One seated foreign batter half-caught Alves' conversation, word by fuzzy word. The brat on the other team was probably today's starter, and something about those eyes earlier had felt unsettling. But the batter wasn't particularly close to this newcomer, and had no intention of striking up a chat with a mercenary who'd only just arrived.
And that — that single moment of mutual indifference — was the last brake in the entire world that could have stopped what was about to happen.
Changwen sailed right past it, foot flat on the accelerator of the express train to hell.
The incident erupted between the two pitchers, who had been locked in a competitive duel of outs, after a small crack — small, yet seismic — split open between them.
Top of the sixth. The visiting Doubles were up to bat.
Leadoff hitter Sung Hyun-tak had doubted my advice to the very end, but with no alternative plan available, he'd followed it anyway — and in exchange for two of the club-issued bat exchange coupons vanishing in the space of a heartbeat, fortune paid him back at equal value.
"Ha! Did my one good deed for the day."
Beaming ear to ear, Sung Hyun-tak whooped at me as he pulled on his base-running gloves. I signaled right back: 'Late-night snacks are coming out of your wallet tonight, sir.'
Through his full batting routine, then set in the box, waiting on the pitcher. First pitch: ball. Buried so deep inside it practically wore my jersey. Velocity... call it 154 km/h off the scoreboard.
Alves sat at sixty-six pitches. Right on schedule for the tank to start sputtering.
Mixing in off-speed stuff like the changeup didn't lighten the load nearly as much as people assumed. Hitters survived because they got to recover during their own half-innings at the plate — any starter flinging thirty, forty pitches in a single frame wouldn't survive three of them. And when the moment came where a pitcher suddenly had to blow through pitch after pitch in one inning, the fatigue arrived that much faster.
"Therefore, when the amount of thinking required increases, calculate how much faster a pitcher is consumed. Class dismissed."
"...What?"
Ignoring the inane nonsense from the other side, I squared into a bunt stance.
Toward third base — tap.
See, this is who I am: a man with a slugging percentage to brag about, the kind of shameless degenerate who'll flash a grin and drop down a bunt purely to ruin your day. So tell me, Alves — what's your move now?
To Noh In-seong's question, Alves delivered a textbook answer with the very next pitch — a genuine marvel of nature.
"Khuck...!!"
And Noh In-seong, likewise, hurried his footsteps so he could return that answer — stamped with his own heartfelt signature.
The season wasn't even three months old. This was already the third bench clearing.
This absolute lunatic just threw at my body. On purpose. Just now.
And look at that face — that shameless, grinning mug — sitting there smiling at me like plunking me had been his God-given right. Blood pressure climbing. Heat flooding up through the body. The pain dissolved instantly into dopamine, boiling over into pure combat.
Noh In-seong shoved the flustered catcher sideways, out of his path, and sprinted for the mound.
"Te voy a partir tu madre!"
"Q... Que?!"
He bellowed the single phrase he'd memorized off a translator app, loud enough to echo across the diamond. And would you look at that — the bastard's panic was written all over his face. Back where I come from — same Asia, mind you — Japan, for instance, you take one off the ribs and you just trot to first like a gentleman. Not on this hell-peninsula, my friend. Not while I'm in this league.
"One for the body, on the house!"
The fool was too stunned to even raise a guard. In-seong slipped past his flailing arms and collided into him, torso to torso — a body shot!
"Kheuk...!!"
The fist came in from a blind angle and landed dead-on beneath the ribs. The man folded, gasping, face-down in the dirt, closely inspecting everything he'd eaten that day. Ugh. Disgusting bastard.
Before the others could arrive, In-seong moved fast — up and onto the fallen man's back. Knee grinding into his spine, the guy's right arm wedged between his own legs and locked tight.
He swept his gaze across the field — at the players sprinting in, at the ones winding up to sprint in — and roared:
"EVERYBODY HOLD!! One more step from anyone, and this man's arm snaps like a twig!"
And the players stopped. It's human nature — when something defies comprehension, the body freezes before the brain can object.
"AAAAGH...!!"
"You. Coming any closer?! You trying to abandon your team?! Abandon your team's arm?!"
To be fair, a few did attempt the slow, stealthy creep-in approach — which served only to demonstrate exactly how wide Noh In-seong's field of vision was. Alves paid the price for each attempt.
"The broadcast camera! Get the broadcast camera drone operator over here!"
"...?!"
History's first bench-clearing hostage crisis unfolded under the stadium lights.
And not just any hostage crisis — one with a player's entire career held at stake.
Of course, the arrangement couldn't hold forever. The moment In-seong declared he would release his hostage if the broadcast camera captured exactly one shot of his choosing, the drone was on the move.
"Alves. From this moment on, repeat after me. Fail to comply, and I can no longer guarantee the safety of your arm."
"AAAAGH!! Okay! Okay, I get it! I didn't even resist, why are you breaking my arm?!"
"I threw the pitch at Noh In-seong of my own judgment and my own judgment alone! Say it!"
"I th-threw the pitch at Noh In-seong of my own judgment and my own judgment alone!"
"Should disciplinary action follow, this was something I initiated! I will take full responsibility!"
"Should disciplinary action... WHAT?!"
Alves panicked. What was this lunatic babbling? My responsibility? Then what happens to—
"AAAAAAGH!! Okay! OKAY!! Ahk! Let go! You son of a—!"
"Hesitate for even one more second, and your career ends. For real. Right here."
At the glacial calm of that voice, Alves turned desperate.
"I take responsibility! I take it! Ahk! LET GO! You bastard!"
Satisfied, Noh In-seong set Alves free.
THWACK—!!
"AAAAAAAGH...!!"
Ah — yes, he did release him. By hurling the arm away like a rag doll. Nobody had specified how the release had to be executed, after all.
The umpire looked at Noh In-seong, exhaled a long, weary sigh, and requested his ejection from the game.
The faces of both managers, once again reaching the inescapable conclusion that their starting pitchers would be sidelined long-term, crumpled in perfect unison.
"Ha... for God's sake..."
Condemned to entanglement with two certified madmen, both men resolved, once again, to get drunk and curse the heavens that evening.
After the game, the press corps lined up to kick the corpse. There were many questions, but the signature exchange went like this:
"Player Noh In-seong. Alves escaped without a serious injury in the end, but was that appropriate conduct on a baseball field?"
"Flip the question around — if I hadn't subdued him there and we'd just traded blows across the whole field, we might've been looking at a forfeit. You're welcome, by the way."
And the saddest part of all? Everyone who actually knew baseball agreed with him.
This was a league where teams still had players who hadn't made it back from bench-clearings past. The injured party here was one pitcher who had deliberately thrown at a man — and it ended in a mildly twisted forearm muscle and some bruises? Compared to In-seong's handiwork, the man had gotten off like a saint! Even that nonsense circulated from time to time.
In the middle of all this madness, the association wrapped everything up with a five-game suspension and an eight-million-won fine. That was it. That was the whole punishment.
Not that the moral watchdogs let it slide. Frowning organizations piled up faster than you could count.
"A violent thug like that gets to play professional baseball?! Wake up, association!"
"Is there a backroom connection protecting him or what?! How does a player like that keep his eligibility, I ask you!"
"What are our children supposed to learn from watching this?! Good grief! Harmful media, the lot of it...!!"
And so, while the association lounged comfortably in the belief that this outrage too would blow over, the fire kept growing.
"Your kids don't learn a thing no matter what they watch. Unless it happens to please them. That's the only curriculum that's ever worked."
And at the very heart of that fire stood Noh In-seong.
Center stage of a televised debate panel — cheerfully feeding logs onto the flames.