Every Time We Meet Busan

"I'm Song Joo-in! Looking forward to working with you!"

"Ji Hak-seong. I was a first-team player to begin with, you know?"

"Who *doesn't* know that? I'm only introducing myself because Joo-in was doing his."

The greeting laid bare the difference between a frozen rookie and a relaxed veteran at a glance.

One was a center fielder who had spent three years in the minors until he could finally hit something resembling a baseball and earned his call-up. Song Joo-in.

The other was the team's veteran utility infielder, only now back after surgery and rehab for a frayed shoulder. Ji Hak-seong.

With everyone except Song Jin-wook worn down to the bone, these two had joined the team as exactly the kind of reinforcement the position players needed.

"Well, would you look at that — Hak-seong hyung finally made it up here. Maybe I can catch a breather now."

"Hyun-tak, you're the second baseman. What exactly is so exhausting about your job, you complainer?"

*Everyone here knows each other, huh. Heh heh.* So began Ji Hak-seong's round of greetings.

With this, the infield had acquired a dependable defensive resource in Ji Hak-seong — a man who could cover every position except catcher.

"Does this mean the outfield finally settles into fixed positions? I hated rotating between right field and center."

Pi Jeong-doo, the man who'd been forced to cover left field whenever Dustin moved to first, now had a locked-in position of his own.

A 'specialist' center fielder had arrived, and with Dustin set to be stationed in left rather than first base, right field was finally Pi Jeong-doo's for good.

Two players had come up, and the defensive alignment had returned to something resembling sanity.

And the people left awkwardly stranded by this new arrangement numbered exactly three.

"Tch. Well, there goes my defensive career."

Song Jin-wook, who had just been demoted to the backup of the backup at first base thanks to the arrival of a proper infield utility man.

"I was basically a utility player to begin with — so now even *utility* is a competition?!"

Kim Jun-soo, currently the starting third baseman, but by pure hitting numbers, 'massively' outclassed by Ji Hak-seong.

"...Who's that?"

"He's your direct predecessor at the position, you punk. Can't you at least memorize the names of your seniors?"

That was Noh In-seong, who — being a rookie — simply didn't know a single one of his injured seniors.

Though, to be fair, Noh In-seong was the kind of person who rarely bothered memorizing anyone's name to begin with.

"Hold on a second... come to think of it, you've been butchering *my* name this whole time too?"

"Oh, hey, Seong-tak hyung! Why are you being so clingy today of all days?!"

"It's a three-syllable name, you little punk! Sung! Hyun! Tak!"

Sung Hyun-tak justifiably exploded at the junior who kept digging a sinkhole right in the center of his name.

Ssshhhaaaaa---!!

"Ah, damn it. My clothes are soaked through."

Noh In-seong stepped into the second team's indoor training facility, shaking the raindrops clinging to his body.

"Why on earth did you trust your own two legs instead of bringing an umbrella? It rains plenty here too, you know."

Sung Hyun-tak shook out a long black umbrella and stared at him with contempt.

"Who would've thought I'd get *this* wet over such a short distance—"

"Come on, come on! Hurry up and get in here! Training starts now!"

Just as Noh In-seong was about to blow up, Jo In-soo waved the whole group over from the middle of the training floor.

The league didn't force teams to play through weather this severe. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠If rain drizzled ambiguously before a game and then dumped the moment first pitch approached, the grounds crew might put on their little rain-tarp sliding show — but in Daejeon, where rainfall was hitting 200 millimeters a minute and flooding was a real possibility, no such permit would be granted.

For the Doubles, whose home was a domed stadium, none of the remaining schedule was the least bit frightening anyway.

Seoul to Daejeon was a quick hop, so if the weather turned playable, they'd simply travel then.

The Doubles squad had withdrawn from the road trip and gathered instead at the second team's indoor facility to keep their game legs sharp.

"All right, we start with fungoes. First up — Noh In-seong!"

"Yaaay..."

The manager had called his name, granting him the honor of the first swing, and the answer that came back was pure irritation.

Noh In-seong had not a single shred of enthusiasm — but his body was honest.

*Crack!* The moment the bat met the ball, his body was already moving to where it was headed.

He reached out almost lazily, snagged it with his glove, shifted it smoothly to his right hand, and fired the throw. The whole sequence flowed together, natural and seamless.

"...Ugh, this is such a pain in the ass."

And through it all, his face never once lost its scowl — even his composure was perfect.

Good--!! Here comes the next one--!!

I'm tired! Just hit them at me! ...Whoa! The old man's driving those deep!

"What is with that kid? Is he some kind of defensive GOSU?"

Ji Hak-seong was 'genuinely' stunned. People who made their living with their gloves knew how to recognize a master of the craft.

Errors bouncing off gloves like a *dududuk* drumroll — twenty or thirty a season was standard fare for a rookie shortstop.

For the veterans, it took a career-best defensive season just to hold errors down to the low teens.

To Ji Hak-seong, who had been watching with the thought that 'sure, how good can a rookie possibly be?', it was a shock.

The range? That part didn't surprise him much. He could have guessed it when he first heard the kid could run.

The consistency? That one was a mild shock. It looked like the defense of a veteran stuffed with years of reps.

It reminded him of a legendary veteran shortstop from back when he himself had been a rookie — the kind of player who entered franchise history books.

And then, the speed of his reads on batted balls. At that, Ji Hak-seong nearly lost his mind.

"How fast was that read just now? The ball bounced once and he immediately predicted where it would hop and got his glove there?"

"Well... isn't that exactly why a rookie like him is the infield's leader?"

Sung Hyun-tak began explaining as if it were old news, like a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠man half resigned to it.

Under normal circumstances, with Ji Hak-seong out of the picture, the defensive leadership should have fallen to Jo In-soo or himself.

"Filthy personality, fuzzy on hierarchy, sits out games constantly, loves throwing punches, and disappears the day after every start he makes."

It sounded less like a defensive leader's résumé and more like a list of disqualifications from professional baseball entirely — and yet the defensive leader was Noh In-seong.

"When someone plays in a completely different dimension, people just... end up following him. You know how it is."

He meant that a guy who appeared in only three games out of every five had silenced the entire infield with nothing but the defense he showed.

"If he put that on display all the time it'd stop being impressive. So, yeah — I'll just shut my mouth and do whatever the kid says."

Two months into the season, a rookie who had started on Opening Day had committed exactly one error.

Measured not against his 'same position' peers but against 'his own defensive innings', his fielding percentage stood alone at the top.

The fungo work for the outfield never got as far as simulating a true deep fly ball. It couldn't be helped.

The ceiling of an indoor facility wasn't exactly open sky, and the size of the building made deep flies flatly impossible.

So they settled for handling short hops, relays, and chained throws — that was the extent of it.

Still, there was a genuine sparkle to the play of the Doubles' new center fielder, a kid so young he made 'green' seem generous.

"Hey! You'll wreck your body! Somebody stop that kid from diving! Defensive coach!!"

"Who dives on fungoes?! Knock it off right now!"

The kid would stop diving for a while — then, the moment a ball looked even slightly out of his reach, he'd fling his body again.

That kind of passion, diving for catches in a mere practice drill, was less a shining quality and more a gaping flaw — but then, if he'd had the intelligence to think that far ahead, he'd have been in the first team ages ago.

'...How do I put this. Watching him reminds me of a dog chasing after anything you throw?'

As evidenced by Noh In-seong's utterly dismissive assessment, though, the kid's reads and hands were genuinely excellent.

While rookie Song Joo-in threw himself into fungo drills trying to prove himself,

the *true* blue-chip rookie, Noh In-seong, had quietly stretched out in a corner and was recovering his stamina.

"Ugh, if it was going to be like this, better the rain had just kept us from—"

How could he have known that 'keeping his edge' meant defensive practice?

Noh In-seong spent the afternoon praying for training to end.

"Hey! Noh In-seong! Where'd you go! Where are you hiding, sucking on honey, you rascal?"

"...Ugh, dammit. Coming, I'm coming!"

He'd hidden in the corner with every intention of lying down on the sly — but the manager's eyes were sharp.

In place of the three skulls he deserved, Noh In-seong received three baskets of baseballs.

The fatigue piled up by the training demolished his original plans for the day — a delicious meal and a blissful holiday schedule —

and as a bonus, his itinerary was abruptly replaced with stadium food and an all-day slumber marathon at the bachelors' dormitory.

"Argh! Playing actual games was *so much better*!"

Thus grieved Noh In-seong, forcibly conscripted into a wholesome and healthy schedule.

Rain falling as if the sky had sprung a leak, an entire league's non-domed teams on pause.

Perhaps it was the weather — that muggy, clammy mix of temperature and humidity that made everyone irritable.

Or perhaps it was simply the inherent nature of the internet.

Or maybe it was the nature of sports itself, where someone must win and someone must lose.

Whatever the reason, an army of furious people sank their teeth into the bait: news of Noh In-seong's May Monthly MVP.

There were complaints too — 'Are you kidding me, him AGAIN? Where's the fairness?!' —

but given the numbers involved, such people were, in truth, a small minority.

Fans of struggling teams felt envy pushed to its absolute extreme.

To the strange breed of people who couldn't see baseball as a sport and only saw spreadsheets, he was a godsend.

An inhuman Stat Monster — and inhuman statistics to match.

What if he hadn't mangled his numbers in early June? What if he'd beaten up on slightly fewer pitchers?

"If we're making assumptions like that, then every team wins the title. By that logic, our opponents have a few more championships too, don't they?"

In an interview, Noh In-seong took a flamethrower to the 'what if?' — that great psychological defense mechanism of the sports fan.

"After all, both we and every team we're about to face got suckered by that exact logic and spent years flailing around in dark ages."

If only our star had broken out. If only the legend had recovered from his injury. If only we hadn't made that trade...

Every team carried its own gallery of horrors comparable to — or even more gruesome than — the Doubles' own tragic history.

"A pleasure to see you all again, gentlemen — the teams that passed on me just in case I happened to be a lunatic."

Noh In-seong believed that of every franchise, this was the one against whom he would one day exact the grandest revenge from within their petty, cramped little hearts.

"Eighth place... that's far too high a ranking, isn't it? Don't you think? Teams like yours belong down below, where they're needed."

And so, after an agonizingly long absence, the Busan Marines ascended to Seoul.

Three straight days of rain had fully restored the first-place Doubles — and the Marines had come to face them.

"...How the hell are we supposed to deal with this bastard?"

Every game in Daejeon had been rained out, which meant the starting rotation remained untouched.

Game one starter: Noh In-seong.

A stat line that would have any other rookie's opponents laughing and calling them truly great — six innings, three earned runs — was, for this kid, his *worst* line.

Worse still, this was the same mad dog who had thrown seven no-hit innings against them in his last appearance.

And now that lunatic was out giving interviews again, calling from beyond the gates of hell: 'Just come on over — the River Jordan awaits.'

"Wouldn't our best option be to choke up on the bats and grind out at-bats, like the Superstars did?"

'Let's copy the strategy of the team that produced his worst start!' — the suggestion came from one of the coaches.

"...Is that really our best option?"

But from where Busan manager Park Tae-jung stood, nothing better came to mind.

'Because of those lunatics in the front office, what even is this...'

There was the general manager, wishing he could reach through time and scream 'Stop... STOP!!' at his past self and his scouting staff.

There was the manager himself, forced to run a starting catcher who was barely a catcher at all — because the lunatic had to bean the competent catcher they'd sacrificed a trade to acquire.

Nearly everyone in the Busan Marines organization was miserable.

"Wow, what a gorgeous mug on that guy."

One team sat dead last in the league, and another had watched its entire core collapse. Against that backdrop, Busan's situation honestly wasn't all that dire.

They were within range of fifth place — fall baseball — or even third, where a home-field advantage awaited.

Eight games back at most. If they caught fire and started climbing, anything was possible.

"Mister Sandman~ bring me a dream~ hmm hmm hmm..."

Of course, the problem was that they had to catch the lunatic over there, humming a tune while juggling his resin bag.

Today's game was against first place too — catch that guy, and it was worth two games in the standings.

The Marines' hitters just have to copy what the Superstars showed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠last series! — that was the plan.

Crrrack--!!

Noh In-seong had declared that letting himself get beaten once, then twice, then three times was more than enough of a game.

The bats of the hitters who had steeled themselves to grind out at-bats began shattering one after another.

"That's a new pitch, isn't it? Did you even throw a four-seamer today?"

"Nope! And it's not a new pitch either! Everything out there was sliders or two-seamers!"

The single biggest reason Noh In-seong had needed 90 pitches through five innings against the Superstars last time out was simple: his pitches wouldn't listen to him.

Aside from the four-seamer, the curveball, and the barely-moving changeup, nothing was finding the zone that day.

Resisting by simply throwing harder only went so far.

Maxing out every throw was nothing more than a fast track to exhaustion.

But today—

"Swing! Strike three!"

"No way! That came in over the plate?!"

The ball dove in nearly grazing the hitter's body, then bent sharply back into the strike zone — his stuff was that sharp today.

As if to say, when did I ever treat you so coldly?, the slider reached out its hand to Noh In-seong.

"This is a tonic. A genuine tonic."

A club for whom the arrival of the Busan Marines was something to be endlessly grateful for.

And so it was that Noh In-seong formally joined the ranks of those who whisper thank you every time Busan appears on the schedule.