Flip the Bear and the Bear Flips Back
The reason Noh In-seong suddenly became the target of legions of militant moms across the internet was simple.
Reporters had somehow gotten wind of his Children's Liberation Front Declaration and plastered it across the web as breaking articles.
And as a bonus, his remarks from a debate long past got taxidermied into memes and spread even further.
He could have complained — I made one comment at an open class and it becomes a headline? Where did realism go? — but that was a losing argument.
"Yeah! So then that... Player Noh In-seong...!!"
"Aha, he said that? Thanks, son! Chicken it is — hurry up and eat before it gets cold."
"Hehe, I like it best when you buy me chicken, Dad."
The reporter was a parent too, after all. His informant's fee amounted to nothing more than the dinner menu being upgraded to delivery.
For that dirt-cheap price, he'd obtained the tendencies and quotes of the man currently draped head to toe in every hot topic in Korean baseball.
"The page views!! The views are photocopying themselves, damn it! God...! I love you, Noh In-seong!"
The peace of one household was being held aloft by Noh In-seong.
Conversely, in order to preserve the peace of another household, Noh In-seong was deploying his signature I'll show you something! routine.
Not for his mother or father, though. Those two already knew In-seong's school days — great in a very different sense of the word.
Getting summoned to the school three days after joining the middle school baseball club? That was genuinely nothing.
Then when five third-years called him out, he thrashed them in a back alley, went home and ate dinner, and got summoned to school for it.
Then, on the grounds that petty bribe money still flowed at the middle school, he called in reporters, publicly humiliated the place, and blew the baseball club apart.
After that came the legendary seven months until his transfer to another nearby school with its own baseball club.
For parents who had survived that grueling forced march, there was no chance whatsoever of them getting angry over one offhand remark.
They might even be moved to tears: Our boy can speak in front of children without a single curse mixed in!
In other words, the one who was actually furious right now was In-seong's little sister, Siyeon.
"Hing! I was popular with the kids, though..."
"Nope. They were never into you — their eyes just glazed over at all the tickets you bring home."
Against his sister's whining WWE match, his response was a folding chair shot straight to the face.
Branded a hopelessly oblivious bastard, he had no choice but to offer a compromise to his thoroughly sulking sister.
"Fine. Since it's come to this... want to skip class today and come watch me at work?"
The world had gotten convenient these days — one experiential learning form, and attendance ceased to matter for anyone.
The recent amusement park property-destruction incident had, after all, happened because he'd taken her to a park on a weekday.
"Yes!"
Siyeon beamed. She had been angling for exactly this from the very start.
In-seong let himself be played, knowing full well. If it had been anyone but his sister, that move would've earned a fist straight to the face.
"Haah. Sure, why not."
Nine years between them — effectively forty-seven, counting the past life.
As far as In-seong was concerned, Siyeon was basically just a daughter who didn't listen.
"...So what you're telling me is, somebody planted stolen chocolate just now, and then stole it again?"
"Aigoo, you're not reading the room. We're doing 'experiential learning' right now."
Even on In-seong's rest days, it was never complete rest.
Especially not on a day like today, with a bonus holiday tacked on.
The club had figured, how much damage can a rookie possibly accumulate? He'd normally be in the minors right now — a courtesy to let him rest a little better.
Aside from the small detail that it was courtesy the world didn't need.
"At this rate I should've just gone out and mowed down batters three games straight..."
"Too late. I already picked up a dumbbell, so today's workout is done."
Siyeon set down her pink dumbbell and asked:
"Oppa, couldn't you still come out as a pinch hitter or something?"
"Please. If I do that, the club will decide I'm a voluntary slave and lose all sense of my actual standing."
The price of blurting out, brazenly, a thought only Noh In-seong could think was grim.
"...You're pinch hitting today."
"Ah, for god's sake..."
Unable to curse in front of the kid, In-seong had to swallow it whole and accept, weeping, the mustard he was fed.
The day before, he'd rested after the open class, put in some serious running, and stuffed himself with everything nutritionally virtuous. What remained, then, was exercise — proper exercise to flush out a proper amount of fatigue byproducts.
Today's menu was basic weights and basic strength work to stimulate the muscles.
He couldn't do what he'd attempted in the early offseason of his past life, back when he didn't even know whether his growth plates were still open — rolling monster truck tires, tendon-focused training, all of it off the table for now.
"Nothing for it but to train like a stimulation junkie and call it recovery..."
"Oppa, what's this thing?"
Siyeon stood in front of the body-composition scanner, puzzled.
The pink dumbbell had somehow been ditched on the floor. Fair enough — far too boring for a kid.
"Yeah... ah, it's a machine that shows you exactly how unhealthy your body is."
The old machines that read your insides through electrical resistance were long gone; you just stepped on once and the results came out automatically.
Beholding a prime specimen of technological progress, Siyeon drifted past the machine.
Beep— and the moment the hologram rose, In-seong analyzed it.
"Hmm, no bad signs. Still, I suppose you do share some genes with me."
"We do this at school too, you know? They just print it on paper there."
With childhood obesity and its ilk becoming hot-button issues, kids had been condemned to the hell of school PE classes.
The moment the obesity rate ticked up even slightly, out came running drills, tag, and jump rope.
Sometimes, it seems, science and technology refuse to help a kid loaf around.
"By the way — you came here for experiential learning, so why aren't you following the study plan?"
"...? If I fake something up and hand it in, they take care of the rest anyway?"
Hm, that too is technically valid, and In-seong nodded.
Back in his day he never even submitted a plan — he just cut school entirely and went gallivanting. This much was positively responsible.
A thought that said everything there was to know about Noh In-seong's school days.
"...So who exactly is the little kid, Manager?"
"...Haah. It's In-seong's sister."
The players had puzzled over the small visitor in the dugout, but at the manager's single word they all flinched like a time bomb had just walked through the door — briefly.
"Hello!"
"What the — she looks a thousand times nicer than her brother?"
"Next to that guy, even a devil looks friendly."
Seeing the innocent face, everyone relaxed. At the very least, she hadn't come in wearing her brother's murderous expression.
Before the game, she had visited her brother's workplace to resolve one burning question — what exactly makes pros special? — and so Siyeon stopped by the Doubles dugout.
"If you would just tell your brother to stop kicking me, then maybe I could... khugh!"
"Not a chance. Go field some grounders at first, Song."
Her brother's training session, up close and personal, was a peculiar thing. It mostly consisted of kicking a certain someone.
"Hey! Your blocking is a goddamn mess right now! Who's going to start you playing like that?!"
"Jeez... Hey! I need to train first base too!"
"First base doesn't need training! You just stroll over and scoop! It's that kind of position!"
He spent the entire day grinding down the man he remembered being called on draft day right alongside him.
"Ugh, Seong-tak you bastard, would you stop camping out at first base already..."
"You're not even playing defense today, you cra— oh, right, there's a kid here. You absolute lunatic."
There was also a second-baseman oppa carefully reading their brother's mood.
"Want a snack? Your brother really has a gift for working people over, doesn't he..."
"Right? It's fascinating. At school, Oppa warms up before a game and doesn't say a single word."
The catcher oppa gave her a snack. It was tasty.
"Alright, if this is how you're going to play baseball, kindly report to the minor-league field. In the next situation, move properly."
She watched her brother summon the entire infield and chew them out for moving the wrong way.
Her brother demonstrating from every defensive position — like this, you defenseless morons — and everyone trudging back out to their spots with wounded expressions, only to get berated again the moment they erred.
Somehow, watching her brother lead people was fascinating. Wasn't he the youngest one there?
"...Hmm... why does it feel like Oppa bosses around people older than him with nothing but his mouth?"
Siyeon had come to satisfy her curiosity, and this was the moment she learned her brother's shocking reality.
Before the game began, Mother came to collect Siyeon, and I stayed behind at the ballpark.
Since I had at least negotiated the dugout visit with the manager, it was only fair I gave him something back.
"Though I get the feeling I'm going in today no matter what."
Today was fifth starter against fifth starter — a hitter's day.
Even in Jamsil Dome, with its absurd park factors preserved as sacred tradition, the two weakest starters in the league?
"Look at that — they're beating the living daylights out of the ball out there."
Both sides were swinging their fists as if they'd each picked this as their day.
If the Doubles kept loading the bases and letting one big-bat hitter sweep the table, then...
The Grizzlies fought back by stringing together doubles and scoring with methodical consistency.
Seven innings in, a mad game in which neither side had gone a single frame without scoring.
Even after both starters exited having surrendered six and seven runs apiece, the hitting kept coming.
A deranged brawl with both teams' pride on the line.
"...Screw it. Today I'm burning the entire win-condition bullpen on the way out."
His position was clear: even if it meant emptying out Cho Hyo-jin and Kim Jin-hong both, today's game had to be won.
This series was the last one of May. The rainy season would be creeping in before long.
However many domes the league had, those remained the exclusive privilege of the capital-area clubs.
If the monsoon hit during a road trip to the provinces, pitchers could genuinely lose their game-sharpness along the way.
Even if it overloaded the current pitching staff, banking wins as fast as possible was better for the championship race.
"All-out war!"
The very instant he made a remark practically begging the heavens to send a storm—
CRAAACK—!!
As though everyone who had ever spoken such words deserved to die, the god of baseball suddenly slapped the Doubles across the face.
"...Ugh, this is what always happens when I open my mouth like that."
"That's exactly why you don't run your mouth first and summon calamities like—"
Noh In-seong slumped back against the bench, angling to needle his manager, but—
WHACK—!
"Khugh..."
"Shut your trap! Get ready to pinch hit!"
Talking back to a manager in absolutely no mood for it was a foolish move.
The tablet that had bonked countless Doubles players on the head now bonked Noh In-seong's.
"...Here it comes!"
The Grizzlies' answer was to ride their closer, Cho Hoon, for two full innings.
The Doubles were pressed for time too. Second place in the standings, but the gap had become seriously worrying.
Stop the next batter here by any means, then churn through their own relievers and snatch the victory — that was the best-case script.
The man who had habitually wrecked them, hard, was now stepping to the plate as a pinch hitter.
Backed into this corner, the Grizzlies could not afford to put him on.
Because behind him waited Song Jin-wook — two hits in four at-bats today, both for extra bases. A bases-loaded jam in that situation?
At worst, a perfect recipe for three or four runs.
"...I'm losing my mind here."
"What is there to lose your mind over, you old coot? Just throw one down the middle and be done with it. I've got to get home for dinner."
His father was finally taking a long stretch of holiday leave, so dinner was shaping up to be good.
His appetite thoroughly whetted, Noh In-seong swung the bat around and stepped into the box.
First pitch. Cho Hoon's full-effort two-seamer, blazing in at 149 kilometers per hour.
CRAAACK—!!
At a launch angle safe enough to be a routine fly ball, the Grizzlies allowed themselves a happy thought — briefly.
Like a balloon stuffed full of foul air, rising into the sky with absolutely no intention of coming down, it cleared the wall by a hair—
— and landed squarely on the head of a Grizzlies fan sitting in the outfield seats.
She had gotten her glove up in time, which was admirable; unfortunately, chronically neglected glove maintenance meant the pocket tore clean off.
"Ack!"
"NOH IN-SEOOOONG—!!"
Whether it was a miracle conjured by pettiness, or simply coincidence stacked upon coincidence—
Onto the head of Jeong Hwa-jeong, who had come out to watch her beloved team play for the first time in ages, Noh In-seong's revenge descended from the heavens.
They say a gentleman's revenge, even ten years delayed, is never too late — but—
"You all see that, you bastards?! That's ME! ...Huh? What? Why are you crowding around?"
"First chance in ages to legally beat this bastard! Get him!"
"INDIAN BURIAL PILE—!"
"Ack! Ow! Hey! Not there, don't hit me there... ack!"
The revenge of a petty bastard — no gentleman he — took less than a single month.
Doubles, 14–12. Game One went into the win column.