Half Time No-Show
Roll the clock back to the top of the first inning of the All-Star Game proper.
Noh In-seong was, surprisingly enough, sprawled lazily across the bench, watching the game.
Of course, there were those whose inner Confucian Dragon thrashed and screamed — A rookie... lying down on the bench...?
But try yelling at a human-sized beast that will pay back every scolding with the most exquisite agony imaginable, and see how that works out for you.
"Hmm... hm hm! I shall simply endure. Good grief."
They only ended up stewing in their own frustration.
As it happened, none of the Doubles starters were around, and nobody had any intention of sitting near him anyway.
The players circled around Noh In-seong as if a great gaping hole had opened up around him.
Dense and tight, like a cage built to contain a wild beast.
"Argh, I can't see a thing. Would you all kindly move your asses."
"...Very well."
For the sake of his view, only the ones in front relocated.
"Good evening, viewers. This is Jamsil. The East versus the West — it's the All-Star Game!"
"Yu Hyung-jin, the number one pick in the fan vote, is our starting pitcher... and Noh In-seong is... yes, surprisingly, he's listed as a substitute?"
"He only entered the Home Run Derby for kicks, but he made it all the way to the finals, so he'll be appearing after the fifth inning."
Winning the Korean All-Star Game didn't actually get you anything.
There was a modest prize pool, sure, but nothing life-changing. A Home Run Derby where the winner's check exceeds your annual salary? Cash just for showing up? If you wanted that, you had to go to America. Here, in a word, it was a talent show.
WAHAHAHAHA—
"Oh my, Song Jin-wook is walking out with an actual stone glove instead of a leather one. He can't even put it on."
"Now that's style. He must be gunning for the Best Performance Award. Though I doubt he'll be playing any defense with it."
"If you're going to think that way, you've already lost. Haha."
Creativity scored plus self-deprecation points, and the closer your act was to your own public image, the higher your score. That was, generally speaking, what the Best Performance Award valued most.
"...It's kind of sad, honestly. But hey, the Performance Award today might actually be mine."
When Noh In-seong's act — titled, by his own naming, '20' — was revealed, Song Jin-wook had been fairly confident of victory.
The other players had settled for cross-dressing or wrapping themselves in slapstick costumes, but he had brought out his own complex and the whole saga that came with it.
"Still, this thing is seriously heavy..."
Carrying it out to the plate had been an awkward ordeal, and as he hauled it up there with much grunting, he lost his balance—
CRASH—
"Wow, is that actually made of pure concrete? Because if so, that thing's got to weigh—"
"This is genuinely a case of boldness born of sheer ignorance. Song Jin-wook's arm strength is..."
"Wow. You beat me on sheer scale. You're the best, man."
It was heavy enough that the opposing catcher, Jeong Han-sol of the Grizzlies, could only stare at it in disbelief. He'd ended up smashing it to pieces, yes, but the crowd had loved every second of it.
Song Jin-wook knocked out a single, was subbed out after the Home Run Derby, and had just settled into the dugout, thoroughly satisfied with himself, when—
"...You're seriously planning to play defense looking like that?"
"SIUUUUU—!!"
Noh In-seong was striding onto the field in a white soccer kit with black pinstripes.
For the baseball association preparing the All-Star Game, the truth was that worry had been crushing them like a mountain.
Mainly because of one particular bastard! Though honestly, every other problem seemed to trace back to him too!
"...It's him again, yes, but this time the vector is a little different."
"Different how, exactly?"
"He simply says he doesn't care much for the All-Star Game itself. That it isn't played desperately enough."
They had worried about bench-clearing brawls, about him picking fights — but on the contrary, Noh In-seong had, before the game, been docile and gracious, obligingly doing fan service.
Granted, anyone who picked a fight with him got nothing but a scowl before they went scurrying off with an eek — but that was business as usual by now, not even worth registering.
"...Still, something does feel off about it, doesn't it."
"You're right... unlike everyone else who came here to enjoy themselves, he's just lying there."
That perception shattered right after the Home Run Derby.
He'd crushed his opponent with overwhelming numbers, hoovering up every eye in the stadium, then triggered waves of laughter with a mocking, ridiculous celebration.
"...At that point, I'd say he's been at least somewhat assimilated?"
"This much is nothing! Haha."
And then they saw him take the field for defense — dressed in the uniform of a world-famous soccer superstar, with something black taped around his cleats — and the association let itself breathe a sigh of relief. Surely today, of all days, would pass without major incident.
It was a mistake.
"...Are you actually going to play defense like this?"
"SIUUUUU—!!"
"...God. What in the hell is this concept even supposed to be..."
Kang Ji-hoon, the one legitimate All-Star from the Superstars, was being driven out of his mind by Noh In-seong.
Having this lunatic on the same team had been barely tolerable. Now the man was entirely beyond communication.
...Come to think of it, he was never going to communicate in the first place, so does it even matter?
"...Sigh. Fine. Do whatever the hell you want."
Kang Ji-hoon got on with his own job and recorded the first strike.
The other players were out there laughing and having fun, but he was currently trade bait. Even performing at his best, the anxiety of being shipped off hung over him — in a sense, he'd given up on caring.
With a million things weighing on his mind, the ball happened to scuff off the bat oddly and dribbled straight up the middle.
"Huh?"
TAK!
"It's a grounder right at the shortstop, but he's not wearing a glove, so... whoa!"
"Was that a shot?! He kicked the ball to first! First base catches it... is this a Bang-Bang Time?!"
"...SAFE!"
"That actually WORKED?! He really was going to play defense with his feet!"
Jeong Gu-young, the Daejeon catcher who'd been subbed in and was watching this whole mess from the closest possible vantage point, gaped in horror.
No wonder something had been wrapped around the man's foot.
"...What is that. Did he wrap a glove around his foot?!"
Yes — Noh In-seong had wrapped a fielder's glove around his spike, purely as shock absorption so it wouldn't hurt when the ball struck him.
The kind of outrageous stunt only the All-Star Game could permit.
And then, at his next at-bat, he escalated things further.
TAK!
"Another one toward the shortstop...!! And this time it's a lobbed shot to second! The second baseman takes it! To first! DOUBLE PLAY!"
"I do cover soccer on occasion, but never in my life did I expect to be calling this kind of madness live..."
He spun a finger above his head, sprinted toward third base, completed a half-flip in midair—
"SIUUUUUU—!!"
SIUUUUUU—!!
"Ah, the fans in the stands are all doing it along with him... yes, it's famous. It's been quite a while now."
"Haha, it's one of those celebrations every man has tried at least once... yes."
"Pitching change! Noh In-seong!"
And the true highlight came at the very next at-bat.
"...Hold on. Seriously? He's coming out for MY at-bat?!"
A second targeted outing, carrying over from the end of the first half of the season.
Kim Seong-ju, 2-for-2 and chasing the title of Mr. All-Star, could only glare at Noh In-seong with a look of utter disgust — but Noh In-seong was simply mouthing that same word yet again.
"Ah, right. No glove. You can see his grip perfectly."
"He's showing us the four-seam grip outright. Yes. He's set."
The windup came, the pitch was delivered — and unlike every other pitch of the game, the grip was on full display. But predictably, what reached Kim Seong-ju was something else entirely.
A ball floated dreamily up toward the sky at a blistering 51.2 km/h, hung there—
"...Strike!"
An offering so slow he could have swung at it twice in the time it took to cross the plate. And it was called a strike.
"...What in tarnation. Damn it."
"What is it? It's an eephus. Never seen a garbage pitch before?"
The dirty little secret of the eephus is that the tiniest twitch of extra force sends it flying in a dead straight line. In other words, it was a pitch one misstep away from becoming live batting practice — and the sheer nerve it took to throw it in an All-Star Game deserved, frankly, commendation.
...He is not a normal kind of crazy.
One pitch was more than enough for Jeong Gu-young to concede the point.
The next one came in at 53 km/h. This time Kim Seong-ju got the bat around and made contact, but it fouled off. And then came the grand finale.
"Yes, he's loaded up two strikes... I've never seen a delivery like this. Oh! Volley shot!"
Noh In-seong let the ball drop from shoulder height, then kicked it off the top of his foot straight to the catcher.
Jeong Han-sol stood there slack-jawed, but it wasn't exactly a rocket, so instinct took over and he caught it anyway.
"99.7 km/h! Strikeout! That ends the inning! Noh In-seong strikes out the batter — with his FOOT!"
Playing a different sport mid-play was, by any rulebook, an infraction — but this was the All-Star Game. A man who'd strolled out in a bizarre costume in place of his uniform had no business worrying about something as trivial as a rules violation.
Noh In-seong traced his circle overhead once more, then charged full speed toward third base and—
SI...huh?... what?... he's just leaving?
The crowd murmured in confusion as he strolled clean out the gate.
"Haha, he's simply headed into the dugout. Did the prankster instinct finally kick in?"
"That's toward the clubhouse, isn't it? Perhaps a trip to the restroom. We'll be right back after these messages. This is Jamsil!"
And just like that, he vanished from the field.
"...Hey, hold on. Where did Noh In-seong GO?!"
"His bag's still here! Nobody's seen him since he went to the clubhouse earlier!"
The association shrieked, 'And after we trusted him THIS time!' — but as if he'd had a reason all along for not bringing his family, Noh In-seong boarded public transit and headed home.
"You expect a madman to play out the rest of the game after that? I'm going home now."
Meanwhile, everyone else remained inside the stadium, leisurely wrapping up their workday.
I'm on Line 2 right now, why is this bastard heading HOME?
Tried talking to him and he just went "muchas gracias" whatever and went SIUUUU;;;
Don't tell me he just walked out of the stadium mid-game?
The final act of any concept is to become the concept itself.
Noh In-seong won the Best Performance Award in a landslide — but unlike the Home Run Derby, where he'd posed for photos clutching the prize money and his trophy, he was nowhere to be found this time.
"Uh... the Best Performance Award goes to Noh In-seong... Noh In-seong? Are you... not here?"
"...Ah, right. He went home ages ago... Yes. It appears second-place Song Jin-wook will accept on his behalf."
"Where else on earth would you find an All-Star Game like this... The 2051 All-Star awards ceremony: shocking in every conceivable way."
Having pulled a no-show even for his own award, the runner-up — creator of the stone glove (actually cement) — stepped up grinning.
"In-seong, you beautiful bastard! Thank you! Thanks to you I'm walking away with five hundred! SIUUUU!!!"
Bagging a birthday gift for free and pocketing the prize money, Song Jin-wook was crowned the ultimate winner of the All-Star Game.
The next day, Noh In-seong visited the company of his old school friend, Deok Jin-man.
Mungye Tteok, the flagship product that had sold like hotcakes for a good stretch, had now drifted into the tail end of its trend and was on the verge of discontinuation.
"So this time, I want you to advertise a real steady seller — our chewy sweet rice cakes."
"...Isn't this the stuff you used to bring to school and eat back in the day?"
There was sweet filling inside, but the selling point was the chew itself. The original plan for a bulletproof shoot had been to mold the rice cake dough into a sandbag shape, show a swing of a baseball bat against it in ultra-slow motion, and let the world marvel at its elasticity.
SNAP—!
"...Hey, it broke. Whoops. Oh well."
"It BROKE?! You absolute brute! It held up when I did it!"
In the end, the man who'd quit the high school baseball team to inherit the family business and the man who'd climbed from the summit of high school baseball to the very peak of the professional game were, it turned out, different breeds entirely.
So for the commercial, Noh In-seong picked up a long green club instead.
"...Why are you holding this thing? It doesn't look anything like a bat."
"Aigoo, teacher. Obviously we'll composite a baseball bat over it in post."
Unlike the rice cake dough, take two — the much lighter green club — survived quite a few swings.
"Honestly though, wouldn't it have been better to shoot it as me just throwing punches?"
"That's not bad. Let's film one more that way too."
POW—!
"Hey, it's caving in."
"Hehe. Good idea, that."
Watching the tteok dent even under a gloved fist, the sponsor beamed with delight.
The resulting ad, once again, whipped up a storm of buzz in every direction.
— A darkened factory. Bundles of rice cakes hang bound from the ceiling.
"This the one? You'd better hold out a good long while."
Noh In-seong appears in a black suit, and the 'chewiness test' begins.
His fists come one after another. Small pestles, grinding tools — the implements change, but the bundle endures them all.
"You survived even that? Wow... tough bastard, real tough."
CRUNCH—!!
But in the end, a genuine swing of a baseball bat is beyond it, and the bundle snaps in two.
'You're next.'
CRASH!
The ad ends with Noh In-seong smashing the camera itself, cutting to black.
Deok Jin-man's second rice cake commercial was another roaring success, laying the groundwork for the company's climb toward mid-sized corporate status — and for his friend Noh In-seong, it became the springboard to becoming the blue chip of the advertising world.
"...But seriously, why is every single offer some version of THIS?"
Fried chicken for the spice. Snacks for the shattering. Sodas for the carbonic acid. Clothing for the black suit.
The side effects of two commercials filmed without a single thought for his actual image were enormous — but either way, his average ad rate had soared past anything before, and honestly, he wasn't complaining.