The 19-Year-Old Who Fled Abroad
A perfect game.
True to its very name, it is a record most pitchers cannot manage even once across an entire career.
That should say everything about how brutal the journey is — the kind of ordeal where merely having it broken up in the ninth inning is enough to etch your name into the history books.
In Noh In-seong's case, the problem was that several rather extraordinary records had attached themselves to it, front and back.
"First of all, this is the first officially completed perfect game in first-team Korean professional baseball."
Nine innings of perfect pitching had happened before, but as far as perfect games went, this was a first.
In nearly eighty years since Korean pro baseball was born, it had happened exactly once.
"It's about as frequent as a star going supernova. Which means anyone who watched it in person witnessed history."
And on top of that, there were a few bonus items.
"Most strikeouts in a regulation game in KBO history, tied for the single-game strikeout record."
Worse still, one of those records had been ripped out of the opposing team's grasp mid-achievement, which made it twice as insulting for them.
But the truly worst one was this.
"The youngest first-team professional perfect game, not just in Korea but worldwide."
Noh In-seong's age — not even twenty — made the Daejeon Phoenix truly, truly miserable.
Truthfully, if he had merely handed over the records, it wouldn't have stung quite so badly.
"Manager, is it true that you called for a bunt during a perfect game bid?!"
"Was it the player acting on his own, or an instruction from the bench?!"
For the man at the top of a team that had lost a player *and* its dignity in the process of that record being set, it was a wardrobe malfunction of the highest order.
I never once called for that bunt!
Granted, he had sent up a contact hitter with quick feet, so the argument was there.
The bunt was the player's choice! — he could have said that much.
But if he did, the reply wouldn't come in words. It might come as his removal from the manager's seat.
Wasn't that the seat you stood at to swallow the wins, the losses, and every curse word spat in between?
What saved the silent, beaten-down Daejeon Phoenix manager was, ironically, the man behind the record himself.
It was Noh In-seong's interview.
"First of all... congratulations on the perfect game, Noh In-seong."
"Thanks. Let's wrap this up quickly. My shoulder's tired and so is the rest of me."
His teammates had hoisted him into the air a few times for the celebration, which was nice enough, but everyone was exhausted — running on fumes — and the final landing had been less than graceful. Sore from head to toe was putting it mildly.
"You set several records out there. How do you feel?"
How do I feel? Fantastic, obviously.
"From now on, I guess I can shut up anyone who thinks they can coach my pitching with a little record I've got."
Something like: no backseat pitching advice in the KBO first team without a perfect game to your name.
Of course, if I ever lose because I pitched badly and pull that line, it'll just look pathetic.
I'd come off like some basketball player holding up three fingers, or that disqualified disgrace of a footballer firing off a ten-paragraph rant.
There it is. Knew that question was coming. To sum up my answer...
Song Mu-jin, standing in front of the radiology room waiting for his X-ray and studying the screen, nearly jumped out of his skin.
I heard he was some kind of unhinged lunatic... and he's covering for ME?!
His finger still throbbed, sure, but his heart was beginning to grow warm.
Noh In-seong scowled briefly at the reporter, then broke into a pleasant smile and continued.
"...Ugh, my finger... my finger again..."
Song Mu-jin's injured finger began throbbing violently all over again.
The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment that came back in return.
And his suffering was only just beginning.
The reporters in the room wore the expression of men thinking, there it is.
But as Noh In-seong kept talking, their faces contorted into something far graver.
"Three innings into a perfect game? The moment my spot in the lineup comes around in the fourth and they're not playing in, I'm bunting. Immediately."
He was merely laying out his plan in a flat, matter-of-fact tone, but that alone was more than enough to bait the entire league.
"Or, if they do play in, they can just lob one over my head. The pitcher and catcher would be thrilled to death, right?"
I already have my record. So as long as I'm around, none of you get to even dream about one. That was how it landed.
"Honestly, that man looks like a savior to me. Remember his name, everyone."
To carry another man's malice on his behalf — from Noh In-seong's perspective, Song Mu-jin might as well have been bearing a cross on his back.
From the perspective of the man actually clutching his aching finger through an X-ray, it was a thunderbolt from a clear sky.
From that day forward, his name became the curse word spat by every player whose milestone perfect game was ruined by a bunt single thanks to Noh In-seong.
"Agh, Song Mu-jin, you son of a—"
A poor, wretched soul condemned to be cursed out once a day, all for laying down a single bunt.
Whatever the reporters were feeling, Noh In-seong made a beeline for home.
Congratulations could wait. His body looked like it was about to hold a funeral.
"Ugh, my whole body aches..."
He was walking to the taxi stand when his phone rang.
"...Hello? Dad?"
"Hey! Son! We're here to pick you up! Come out to the exit!"
His family, who had watched the miraculous game from home, had come to collect him.
Perhaps because it had never happened before — no matter how many games he won, no matter how exhausted he was — Noh In-seong walked toward the exit slowly, smiling in a way that looked rather different from how he smiled on the field.
The Doubles decided to grant Noh In-seong an additional day of rest.
"First and foremost, player welfare is our stated priority, of course..."
Truthfully, the real deciding factor was that nobody had the faintest idea what he might say in another interview. But everyone agreed that an exhausted player deserved the rest.
Which was why Noh In-seong spent from past Monday lunch until nearly dinnertime lying in bed.
"Nnnnghhh..."
Or maybe it was simply that his body refused to generate the energy to move at all.
The rebound from the hardest, most furious throwing performance of his two lifetimes was, unexpectedly, enormous.
The reporters, on the other hand, spent that same time turning his neighborhood inside out.
The exclusive interview with the *daughter* was already secured; now they needed one from the player himself. Yet the man in question had wrapped up a curt few minutes, complained of fatigue, and then vanished for over twenty hours straight.
If they could capture even a scrap of his voice — if they could slap an [EXCLUSIVE!] tag on it —
"For one week, I will be the god of this sports section...!"
This was no ordinary news cycle. It wasn't just baseball writers roaming around; general assignment reporters had flooded in too.
And so the great reporting free-for-all — the hunt for Noh In-seong and a single column inch of interview — began abruptly.
It was nearly evening when Noh In-seong finally dragged himself out of his room.
"Oww, shoulder's still killing me."
Tenderly stroking his thoroughly shredded muscle fibers, he set out on his usual neighborhood loop with the thought of grabbing something to eat. The menu, he figured, should be something loaded with protein...
And just as that thought was forming—
"...Huh? Hey! It's Noh In-seong!"
"Found him! Get him!"
Aaand they're off...
"What the hell is... do I run first, or...?"
The genre of his life had just abruptly shifted from slice-of-life to horror. Or possibly some bizarre experimental programming.
For Noh In-seong, whose plan had been to eat, roll around in bed some more, and go out to play once his body felt marginally better, the zombie apocalypse — no, the reporter apocalypse — was a genuinely Kafkaesque development he had never seen coming.
Thank goodness both his legs were in working order. Noh In-seong bolted on the spot.
"Ah, he's disgustingly fast."
"Where'd he go?! He's got to be around here! Launch the drones! Find him!"
Under normal circumstances, Noh In-seong's drones-hunting and open contempt for reporters were the stuff of legend. But when a crowd of what looked to be just shy of three hundred people swarmed you with your own eyes confirming it, that particular stunt became impossible.
"Ugh, this is disgusting. I'm leaving. I'm out."
The club had probably paid out its consolation damages for the day anyway, so Noh In-seong began planning a short trip.
"First, get out of this area."
Clunk—
Sitting in a café bathroom indefinitely was out of the question. This whole place had become filthy.
The next day, early in the morning, Noh In-seong appeared at Incheon Airport.
"Yes, one passenger for Tokyo... oh? Noh In-seong?"
Since staying in the country was pointless anyway, Noh In-seong had opted for exile abroad.
"Fleeing overseas" made it sound more dramatic than it was — and besides, wasn't there a perfectly good country right next door?
No luggage required, ideal for a quick one-night, two-day recharge, and all you needed was a passport.
Buy clothes there and wear them, figure out meals on the spot, check into a hotel locally.
Noh In-seong's brief getaway had begun.
Stepping off the plane and into the heart of Tokyo, he made his way to the area around Meguro Station.
He checked into a hotel, wandered the neighborhood buying snacks, and then strolled leisurely along the Meguro River with a mouthful of treats.
He drifted into a nearby game center to see what the latest releases looked like—
"Hm? So even this kid turned pro."
He'd found the guy he had gleefully stomped on and then teabagged during his youth national team days.
The fellow featured on a poster, under the banner of a brand-new roster update for a baseball game.
"Hamashita-whatsit, right? Went to a place with a similar-sounding name."
Apparently he'd been drafted by a pro team in Yokohama, just outside Tokyo.
It had only been the one stomping and a few inflammatory interview quotes, but the face going crimson with rage had burned itself into memory.
The audacity of a rising star... that fastball, a bolt of lightning...
Once in a decade, a genius like no other — Hamashita Jiro
"Ah, so THAT'S how that line was meant to be read."
It was a very Noh In-seong epilogue: he remembered stepping on the guy, but couldn't even recall his name properly.
Back at the hotel, he devoted himself faithfully to his original objective: rest.
He grabbed a manga from the lobby to read, popped one snack after another into his mouth, and used the TV screen as white noise — until, glancing over, he noticed his own face on the news.
"There we go. Why is my face on Japanese TV?"
Noh In-seong flipped the channel straight back to the anime channel and began shoveling potato salad into his mouth.
What other people thought of him was of zero interest. Right now, rest was what mattered.
"After this, should I go grab some ramen for a late-night snack?"
Heard ramen on the mainland was salty. They'd probably yell at me if I diluted it with water, huh?
Buzzing with plans — eat that tomorrow, go see that, play some games — Noh In-seong set about scheduling his little itinerary from top to bottom.
Meanwhile, after the article broke about Noh In-seong being spotted at Incheon Airport, baseball reporters in Korea descended into a frenzy of speculative headlines.
Every kind of article imaginable was pouring out.
"Call Noh In-seong again! He's still not picking up?!"
"This is driving me insane. SNS, radio, TV — nothing! His phone's been off this whole time!"
Well, in a world where international roaming is one tap of a finger away, the guy not doing it was technically the one at fault.
But thanks to Noh In-seong's brand of infamy — refusing to hand a single scrap of a story to the press — the irony was that the Doubles were taking the bigger hit.
"...Um... is he actually injured?"
"Doubt it. Knowing that bastard, I'd believe it if you told me he just went on a one-night, two-day trip abroad."
"No, but why Tokyo of all places? Isn't that orthopedic clinic in Yokohama?"
The clubhouse was buzzing too. It mattered a great deal that most in-season trips to Japan were for exactly that kind of thing.
And so, in the Tuesday game against the Superstars — perhaps because everyone's mind was somewhere else entirely — the first-place Doubles suffered a rare defeat and had their dignity dragged through the mud.
"Hope everyone's doing well. Here — presents. Nothing special..."
"In-seong! Are you okay?! How many weeks are you out?!"
It was Wednesday. Noh In-seong, who had flown back the night before, slept like the dead, and reported for work, stared at Jo In-soo with utter bafflement.
"What kind of nonsense is that? I went to Japan and enjoyed a luxury resort stay, is all. Pretty hot over there too, by the way."
"......Could you maybe look at the articles?"
"Why... huh? I'm out for the season? Did I mess with people too much?"
"You lunatic! Why would you travel abroad in the middle of the season!"
"One rookie leaves the country and that's front-page news? These bastards clearly have way too much time on their hands."
It was only now that Noh In-seong truly grasped the scale of his own fame.