The Beast Knows When to Shine
“Two-point conversion is GOOD! Wichita North completes the comeback!!”
The moment play-by-play commentator Ryan's ecstatic roar split the air, the chat flooded in like a burst dam. The atmosphere inside the stadium was hotter than it had been all season.
The broadcast chat was on the verge of exploding. So many messages were pouring in that the stream was lagging and stuttering under the load. Even the two commentators couldn't read out every reaction — or rather, before even trying, they'd simply been swept away in the afterglow of what they'd witnessed.
“There's nothing left to ask of him. Redline 21 has proven himself once again.”
“He's already listed as a 5-star prospect on the recruiting sites. But do you know what's even more remarkable?”
“There's more remarkable to come? What is it?”
“Redline — Kim Jaehyuk — isn't even a senior yet. We get to watch Redline for one more whole year.”
“······Wow. That honestly never even crossed my mind. A player putting on a performance like this is only a sophomore?”
In high school football, a single year of age made an enormous difference. These were years when bodies were still growing, and the physical gap between a senior and a sophomore was anything but negligible.
That was exactly why most starting rosters were built around seniors. Beyond experience and refined technique, the raw physical gulf was impossible to ignore.
Which was why not one person watching — the commentators included — had ever stopped to consider that the kid tearing the field apart was still only in his second year.
While everyone chattered away, possession flipped, and Gardner Edgerton's offense got to work. True to their reputation as a powerhouse, the team that had bulldozed into the quarterfinals on overwhelming offense was methodically chewing up yardage with precisely placed plays.
“No sooner do I say it than Gardner Edgerton finds the end zone!”
“That's playoff semifinal football for you! Gardner Edgerton clearly has no intention of rolling over, launching a ferocious counterattack of their own! This game keeps getting more and more thrilling!”
“Huh? Gardner Edgerton's offense isn't heading back to the bench.”
“Two-point conversion! Gardner Edgerton is going for two as well!!”
Moments later came Gardner Edgerton's two-point attempt. One single chance. Unlike a normal offensive possession with its four downs, the bonus play allowed only one shot — and that one shot······
Thwack!
“Aaaaah! INCOMPLETE! The pass falls incomplete!”
“With that, Gardner Edgerton takes six points from this drive, bringing the score to 13-8.”
“Gardner Edgerton now holds the lead — but Redline is circling, hunting for his chance to strike on the other side. What a fascinating situation this is!”
A duel of blades. Coach Chris's strategy for Gardner Edgerton had proven highly effective. Sure, the two-point conversion had failed, but for now they held the lead.
“We can actually win this, right?”
The student body of Wichita North had packed the stands. When someone voiced their anxiety, Ronnie Wilder — now fully recovered from his injury — furrowed his brow.
“Captain! Are you seriously even asking that?”
Even as he said it, Ronnie shot a furtive glance at the person seated beside him.
Mark Hamilton. The team's field general gazed down at the field in silence, his arm locked in a cast.
“Jaehyuk and the boys will rip the lead right back any minute now. Isn't that right, Mark?”
“Obviously.”
Mark answered with flat certainty, as if the question deserved no second thought. At that, the students around them roared their approval.
“Must be rough, though, Mark. If you hadn't gotten hurt, you'd be running out there with them right now.”
“Goddammit! Who even IS this guy? Why do you keep spouting useless garbage?”
As Ronnie's scowl deepened, Mark waved a hand as if to say it was nothing.
“It would be a lie to say I have no regrets. But I'm fine. If the team wins, that's enough for me.”
“That's our Mark! Captain of Wichita North!”
Right — it would be a lie to say otherwise.
But contrary to everyone's expectations, Mark's regret wasn't about missing the moment of victory. It had only been six games. And yet in that span, he had come to understand something with absolute clarity.
Kim Jaehyuk. At first he'd been nothing more than a chess piece to Mark. But he was a monster who shattered even the rules of the chessboard itself.
“Sorry to say this to you, but I wanted to keep playing alongside that guy for a little longer.”
Ronnie snorted at Mark's words.
“I'd feel the exact same way! Look at that insane skill! Damn it all, I'd switch positions like Liam did if it meant playing with him!”
“Kim Jaehyuk doesn't just play the game well. It looks like he's out there running wild on his own, but at heart he knows how to take care of his teammates.”
“See, now you're just making it worse, Mark! We're graduating this year!”
Mark paid Ronnie's whining no mind whatsoever. Instead, he added quietly:
“That kid is a beast.”
“A beast?”
“Yeah. He instinctively knows how to win. How to raise his team's spirits, how to crush an opponent's momentum — and when it's time to shine. Like right this second.”
“Huh?”
Whoosh—!
Pop!
The ball whistled through the air, and a pass connected cleanly with a Wichita North receiver's hands. Ronnie belatedly read the formation and saw it: a swarm of defenders flooding toward Jaehyuk's side of the field.
“He is the strongest weapon on the field, and the strongest decoy. At the high school level, there is no one who can stop him.”
“Then tell me, Mark — do you think Jaehyuk's game would hold up at the college level?”
At Ronnie's question, Mark grimaced as if the very question were an insult.
“Without a doubt.”
“Hell yeah!”
Well, it had better hold up — otherwise nothing would make sense. Ronnie let his gaze drift across the stands and spotted them: a mass of college scouts clustered together. Not that they'd come for Jaehyuk alone, but he was undoubtedly the main event for most of them.
“KYAAAAA!”
“TOUCHDOWN! It's a touchdown!”
“That's the way, Tony! Keep it rolling!”
Another score, back to back. Ronnie shot to his feet and bellowed.
“LET'S GO, WICHITA NORTH!!”
“WAAAAAAAH!!”
The championship game was within arm's reach.
The game churned on breathlessly. Punch and counterpunch, back and forth, until suddenly the fourth quarter was nearly spent. The score stood at 37-29. We were up by eight.
“Whew... whew.”
“Haaah.”
Everyone looked drained — the pace of the game had been blistering. And yet the other side looked far worse off than we did.
“Jaehyuk, how the hell are you not winded?”
James, freshly rehydrated, asked me with an expression of pure disbelief.
“I've still got gas in the tank.”
“That's exactly the thing! You're always heaving and wheezing at practice, but come game time you're flying all over the field. What's your secret? Spill it.”
“Talent.”
The teammates stared at me like I'd just said something absurd. But I hadn't lied. What could I do? It really was talent — my Gift.
Running along the line didn't just elevate my overall performance; it also burned far less stamina. Which was how I'd earned the reputation of a guy who only gave his all during games. But what was I supposed to do about it? There was no clearing up the misunderstanding — and besides, I'd never actually lied about anything.
“Man, the other side doesn't quit, though. If we hadn't converted both of those two-point tries, things could've gotten seriously dicey.”
The opponent was in the middle of a drive. Tony, watching them work, let out a sigh of relief and turned to me.
“We can win if we just keep this up, right? Right?”
Tony asked me like a kid begging for reassurance. Somewhere along the line, he'd become dangerously dependent on me — and thanks to that, I'd long since been promoted to the quarterback's full-time mental caregiver.
'They say the more arrogant you get, the better your performance. Somewhere along the way this went badly off the rails.'
It would've been nice if he'd just handled it on his own. But leaving him alone was a risk — the guy had the mentality of a sunfish in a shark tank, and the whole team paid for it. Honestly, his skill wasn't that far off from Mark's. And God, I missed Mark.
“You little punk — so what, are we gonna lose now?”
“Right?”
“It's not 'right.' Even if you curse us to lose, I'll drag us to a win anyway.”
Smack!
I smacked him upside the head. Tony, far from being offended, beamed like he'd just received a divine blessing. Something about feeling reassured now.
“Jaehyuk! Jaehyuk! Hit me one too!”
“Me too! Me too!”
“You absolute lunatics.”
Led by James, the exhausted players' eyes lit back up, and they swarmed toward me. In the end I couldn't stop until I'd given every single member of the offense one good smack apiece — while Tyron watched the whole spectacle with a warm, contented smile.
“What's so funny, Coach.”
“Hahaha. Talk tough all you want, but you take care of your own, don't you?”
“That was stress relief, for the record.”
And honestly? It did help. There was nothing quite like getting to smack these goons around legally.
“Nnngh... Jaehyuk, you didn't hit me way harder than everyone else, did you?”
I ignored James's grumbling entirely and swept my eyes over the field. Ugh. If Liam could just get one more stop, I could watch the rest of this in peace······
'When that punk gets back, he's getting smacked too. Just you wait — I'll bestow my blessing.'
Late in the fourth quarter. Two minutes remained on the clock. The game had kicked off on an early-winter evening, cold enough to warrant a coat — but out on the field, a scorching heat refused to die.
“HUAAAAGH!”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Linemen collided, and the roar of the crowd crashed over the field, deafening.
“GGGRRRAAH!”
The crown jewel of any offense is, without question, the quarterback. The pass and the run follow in his wake. But the foundation propping all of it up was the line.
Gardner Edgerton's offense was formidable largely because of these linemen and their exceptional skill. Though they belonged to the offensive unit, no one took defense more seriously than they did — and in devotion to their commander, the quarterback, they threw their whole bodies into every block.
And conversely, the defensive linemen on the other side were pure aggression incarnate.
CRUNCH!
Wild beasts flailing, clawing, desperate to strip the ball away. They burned themselves alive for the sake of one thing and one thing only: the football.
'Don't these guys ever get tired?'
37-29. In a situation that demanded points, the clock was bleeding out fast. And under the relentless pressure, Gardner Edgerton's quarterback — Virgil — was losing his grip on his own focus.
Roughly three seconds since he'd taken the snap. Anxiety about this being his last real chance, combined with fraying concentration, left Virgil unable to find an open receiver. Soon he was actually debating tucking the ball in and scrambling for whatever yards he could salvage himself.
'Screw it.'
As it happened, the space ahead had just opened up from the linemen crashing into one another. Without another thought, he surged forward.
But in that exact instant — a crawling chill, and the unmistakable feel of a stare burning into the back of his neck.
“Ah······.”
His concentration had slipped, and he'd overlooked something obvious: even with the front breached, the opposing players still existed somewhere on this field. By the time he realized it, it was far too late.
POP!!
The sensation of his arm being seized. Then a hard forearm wrapping around his waist from behind.
'Fuck!'
Gardner Edgerton's thick offensive line had been breached. The linemen's exhaustion played its part — but Virgil holding the ball far too long had done its share as well.
“Going somewhere?”
A frosty voice at his ear, and Virgil was flung to the turf. He craned his head upward and saw Wichita North's edge rusher smiling down at him — cold and composed, like a man who had finally pulled off something he'd been waiting for.
“I opened that lane for you, and you actually walked right in.”
Truthfully, he hadn't. But it was advice Jaehyuk had once handed down for moments exactly like this one.
If it works out, sell it like the whole thing was planned!
And the play had worked flawlessly.
“What—?”
It was······ a trap? He read my mind?
In that instant, Virgil's mental fortress came crashing down. The game clock was already bleeding out — and now, on top of it, he'd thrown away one of his precious final downs. Seeing it all unfold, Liam thrust his fist into the air, certain of victory.
Toward his teammates watching from the bench.
“HUUUAAAAAH!!”
Along with his battle cry, the bench erupted.
“We believed in you, Liam!”
“One more stop! That's all we need! We're going to the finals!”
Play resumed. And Virgil, his mind shattered, flung a desperation bomb of a pass and handed the game away.
Tweeeeeet—!
“GAME OVER!”
It ended with an almost insulting ease. The ferocity of the past hours came apart all at once, and Gardner Edgerton's players crumpled where they stood.
“HUUUAAAAH!!!”
“THE FINALS! WE'RE GOING TO THE FINALS!”
“The state championship is right in front of us!”
Wichita North, meanwhile, detonated into full festival mode. Even the fans who'd come just to catch a glimpse of them screamed themselves hoarse in celebration.
And now, the final game would be against Blue Valley High School — the top seed out of Group B. At least within Kansas this year, they reigned as an absolute juggernaut: a team boasting not one but two 5-star recruits, a rarity even on the national stage.
But everyone here believed it without reservation. No matter how elite a high school 5-star prospect might be —
None of them would be a match for Redline 21.
No — if anything, that was exactly why······ they were hoping he'd blow them to pieces.
“Redline is going to smash Blue Valley to dust!”
“LET'S GOOOO!!”