Ice, You Bastard, Ice! (ICE, ICE, BABY)
The day after Noh In-seong had played the Changwon typhoon for a fool and walked off with an effortless shutout under the guise of goodwill, the love child of high pressure and low pressure drifted east along the coastline — its bite weakened, but still very much alive.
In place of the mentally corrosive sport of baseball, the storm had declared it would deliver the nation a full-blown soaking show instead, and was busy spraying water across the entire country. Games two and three against Changwon? Not a chance in hell. That was precisely why the team had emptied out the road hotel and loaded everything onto the bus.
Under normal circumstances this would be the guy lounging at the road hotel, telling the cook "these eggs are pretty mediocre..." — the kind of remark that earns you a slap — but today Noh In-seong was stretched out in his own bed, in his own home, savoring the drumming rain as ASMR.
Of course, lying back and resting didn't mean he was actually resting. He was deep into one of his manic video-bingeing sessions — the kind where he'd grumble "there's nothing damn worth watching" while machine-gunning the next-video button — when, on a whim, he ran an ego search on himself to take stock of whatever fresh curses the internet was hurling his way.
"I hereby nominate... Doubles player Noh In-seong!"
He'd stumbled on a clip of a major video creator taking the Ice Bucket Challenge for charity.
"Uh... why me, of all people?"
Dumping a bucket of ice water over your own head for the noble cause of curing ALS was all well and good, but—
"You've watched Korean baseball for thirty years? And you're nominating me?"
This was the man whose life story, if you summed it up, read like a case study in betrayal and mistreatment. And they were asking him?
That said, he couldn't exactly brush off a mega-creator with 1.3 million subscribers. Sure, he could play dumb — "Huh? Did something like that happen?" — but that carries zero weight with a guy who streams video games for a living. The clip would get ripped and replayed into eternity, with comments like "how about liquid nitrogen instead of ice water?" piling up underneath.
"If I'm going to get railroaded into this anyway, I'd rather move on my own terms."
And come to think of it, Lou Gehrig had been a ballplayer too. Ballplayers helping their own — that's a beautiful thing, isn't it? Gehrig had been a man of sterling character, so forgiveness was off the table; the man deserved an ash bat upside the head. But still.
ALS in 2051 — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, to use the formal name — had long since been demoted to the status of "a disease that's kind of a hassle." You check into the hospital, choke down three days of hospital food, finish the procedure, walk out, and then spend two more unpleasant months dealing with the aftereffects. That kind of disease. The world owed that progress to the countless people who took the ice water to the head — or dodged it and donated anyway.
And so, to the countless "voluntary" acts of goodwill by countless good people, Noh In-seong's "voluntary" goodwill was now added.
"Hey, hyung, it's me. You had lunch yet? Not yet? Perfect."
Though the goodwill in question ran a noticeably murky shade.
"Hey, bro. It's me, it's me. Yeah. If you haven't eaten, come join us?"
"You really do come running the second I call, you rascal. Fine, let's grab a meal."
And so In-seong gathered his victims of good... no, of goodwill.
"...So the reason you're suddenly buying everyone food... is this bullshit?"
"In-seong, have you ever heard of the Triangle of Conscience?"
"No way. Seriously? Aww, you were too scared of getting chewed out to tell In-soo hyung, weren't you?!"
Before an audience of three objectors, Noh In-seong flashed a beaming grin.
A rather peculiar lineup — Song Jin-wook, Andy, and Lim Jae-min — had assembled at the Doubles front office on a Friday. Two of them had shown up wondering what strange wind had blown his way, since In-seong buying meals was a once-in-a-blue-moon event. Song Jin-wook had strolled in without a care in the world — they ate together often enough — cheerfully wondering what today's menu would be. And the result of In-seong treating everyone at that upscale tonkatsu place everyone loved, then coolly asking them to help shoot a little club video, was this:
"Fuck, an ice bucket challenge in the middle of the season?! Hey! What happens if we catch a cold?!"
"FUCK — I'm from the south, dammit! Who does this kind of shit!"
Song Jin-wook was worried about his health; Andy simply hated the cold on principle.
"Uh... so what's this guy's angle, exactly? A bastard like you volunteering for charity and social justice? Not a chance."
Lim Jae-min knew better than anyone what a snake Noh In-seong was, so he'd started sniffing around immediately.
Having confirmed the club's camera drone wasn't rolling yet, In-seong laid his cards on the table without protest.
"Next week, if I remember right, it's Busan away, then Gwangju away. A twelve-game road trip."
"...Right?"
Twelve straight road games — what lunatic drew up that schedule? And yet, astonishingly, it happened regularly to teams that shared a stadium. He hated the sight of the Grizzlies grinning their way through twelve straight home games while everyone else suffered, but the last home series before the All-Star break was against the Grizzlies. Let the bears, who'd been grinding out games without a single day of rest, bleed out their stamina — and then laughing last is simply how the game is played.
"See, the Ice Bucket Challenge nomination came to me first. Originally I was just going to do it myself and pass it along to a few people, but—"
—it felt way too much like targeted sniping. What a waste, right?
"Andy, you came up through the same minor-league organization as the Busan import, if I remember right. Correct?"
"...That's right?"
"So you're going to dump ice water on the import pitchers of Gwangju, Busan, and the Grizzlies."
"...OH. What kind of devil-spawn are you..."
And so In-seong began issuing orders, one by one.
"Lim Jae-min, you dump ice water on the Grizzlies' catcher Jeong Han-sol, plus two catchers from other teams."
"...Huh? We're not doing the Gwangju and Busan catchers?"
"Are you an idiot? The Gwangju catcher profits from sitting out, and the Busan catcher freezes solid the moment he lays eyes on me anyway."
To scatter suspicion, same-team nominations were to be avoided at all costs.
"Now then, Mr. Song. Our own team has to nominate somebody too. Let's pick out the good hitters from each club."
"...Then how about Dustin and Jong Min-soo hyung? They play pretty similar positions to me..."
"You still had passion left for third base? Wow. Disgusting. Genuinely disgusting."
"...You bastard — to the person trying to help you?!"
There was a certain amount of positional self-dealing baked in, but in the end they managed to drum up nomination excuses that everyone could half-swallow. And just to be safe, they even tacked on an extra nomination from their own team.
And thus the Doubles Ice Manipulation Squad began moving in coordinated fashion.
"Hello, everyone. This is Noh In-seong. Figured half the country would be sending donations the moment I started streaming anyway."
—I'm throwing the first punch. Thank you very much.
It all began modestly enough, with a video quietly uploaded to his personal gaming channel.
Even before he'd bought everyone tonkatsu, In-seong had already hauled bags crammed with ice down to the neighborhood playground.
"Hey, squirt. Been a while. Help me out and I'll sign anything you want — photos, jerseys, the works."
"Whoa! In-seong hyung! No baseball today?"
"You came out to play the second the rain let up too, didn't you? Nobody plays baseball in weather like this."
With the neighborhood kid's help and the cooperation of the local management office, In-seong rushed his preparations. The rain had paused and the sun was out, but another downpour could arrive at any moment — he had to move fast.
Into that ever-present red vessel known to every generation — the one you somehow itch to call by some folksy name rather than "basin" — went the store-bought ice and water, and In-seong's human labor hauled the whole thing up the slide.
"...Ugh, this thing is heavy...!! Okay — when I deliver my line, you just shove the whole thing over."
"Hehe, this is gonna be great. Got it. So what do I get for helping?"
"Hm, how about a club jacket? Paying you snack money would somehow make me look like a bad person."
They settled on a kids' signed team jacket, and In-seong squared up to face the camera drone.
"This is the Ice Bucket Challenge. The people I nominate are—"
SHLOOOOOSH...!!
"ACK! Ice! Ice! You little bas— wait, no — you squirt! Hold on a second!"
A somewhat undignified scene was indeed staged, but he did manage, per plan, to successfully nominate Andy, Song Jin-wook, and Lim Jae-min.
"Hey! Squirt! You tip it over when I say the line!"
"Well, it was so heavy I tilted it ahead of time — how was I supposed to know it'd all dump out at once?!"
In-seong and the kid ducked under the eaves and fell into bickering, while a light drizzle crept back in and began melting the leftover ice on the playground.
The next day, the pre-recorded videos went up on Doubles TV, the club's official video platform.
"Hello, everyone. This is Song Jin-wook..."
"I'm Lim Jae-min, rookie of the year class!"
"...Ah, In-seeeong. I really, really don't want to do this... This is Andy."
Three more souls received the baptism of ice water, and three more frozen humans were born.
"...Heh heh heh. I won't be the only one soaked. If you can't endure this, you're not a man."
"T-t-trembling...!!"
"Better Do It Right...!!"
Each delivery packed with its own flavor of taunt, the videos landed on every club's social media.
It's rare for the whole league to rest inside a typhoon's path — after all, domed stadiums exist. For the Grizzlies, grinding through a home stand, the wind and rain meant absolutely nothing.
"...So. Do we actually have to film this?"
"You could always just donate without doing it, sir..."
But once players from other clubs had done it, failing to do it yourself risked a season's worth of "Scared?" jeers. And crucially, the very first victim had been Noh In-seong, of all people. In interviews the guy would absolutely be going, "C'mon, chicken? You really are chicken, huh?"
"I can't stand the thought of that... Ugh, fine, whatever."
Jeong Han-sol surrendered himself to the shrieks of the ice water crashing over his head and to the sigh factory running at full capacity.
"...Uuuugh...!! I refuse to nominate a single additional person...!! Brrr, it's cold...!!"
He exercised a spirit of "as long as it's only me" — character considerably better than the league average.
But not everyone chose to walk Han-sol's road. Just as not everything that glitters is gold, not every ballplayer is stocked exclusively with sportsmanship.
"Jin Woo-jeong! Jin Noh-ryeok! Jin Sa-rang! I hereby nominate the three pitching brothers of the Jin family!"
It began with Jong Min-soo sniping the bastards who'd planted a baseball in his back — and never so much as apologized. As this magnificent icy "goodwill" made the rounds, something genuinely rare emerged from the carousel.
"...*Sigh*. This is Cho Ho-yeon. I nominate manager Park Tae-jung, and Jeong Yong-jun..."
SHLOOOOSH...!!
A former national team manager telling sitting club managers to take your baptism of ice! — and with that, a firestorm far larger than anyone had forecast began sweeping through the baseball world.
"Cough...!! Cough, cough!"
"That's a cold. Why are you catching something even dogs don't catch?"
"Huh? Him too? You too?"
The sudden body-chilling effect, naturally, doubled as the head-warming treatment for heat illness — and somewhere along the way, the clubs collectively found themselves nursing a handful of patients in questionable condition.
"...Apparently that worked a little too well."
"You are a genuinely insane bastard, In-seong."
"Jae-miiiin. If you'd been born in the Middle Ages, you'd have been a Mongol khan."
You could read it all in the reactions of Song Jin-wook and Andy — Lim Jae-min had caught the cold himself and couldn't make it.
"How is an entire dugout wearing masks right now? Is it the early 2020s or what?"
The next opponent's dugout — the Busan Marines' — hung heavy with the gloom of a funeral parlor. It started with their manager, Park Tae-jung, coughing.
"Cough... cough, cough!!"
The starting catcher was sick, and the backup catcher was so visibly ill that his reluctant insertion into the lineup was plain to everyone's eyes.
A team that hadn't been much good to begin with got hit with the black knight of disease on top of it all. And the Doubles, much like the ailing Marines' condition, succeeded in sweeping the three-game series clean.
"Tsk. Kind of feel bad even though we won. Guess I did something pretty terrible, huh."
Perhaps the last intact side of his nearly obliterated Triangle of Conscience had finally cut into him — because the very next day, Noh In-seong quietly donated ten million won of his own money, completely off the record, to a venerable foundation supporting ALS patients.
...Funny — you don't seem to feel all that bad about the opposing team that caught colds because of you?
A Lou Gehrig hallucination struck up a conversation inside his head.
'Those bastards? Nah. Not really?'
—Your conscience got wounded on account of YOU, not them. What do you care if those bastards get sick or get hurt?
Noh In-seong remained, as ever, Noh In-seong.