Hand It Over
"Gimme the ball."
Tony Garcia, the second-string quarterback, suddenly felt a chill crawl up his spine.
He glanced sideways and there was the East Asian mercenary—the one who hadn't blindly charged off this time—standing right beside him.
"Or should I just take it from you myself? I heard it doesn't matter as long as you pick it back up after you drop it."
The pressure of the opposing defensive line barreling toward him. On top of that, the fierce ego radiating from his side made Tony hand the ball over without even thinking about it.
Snap!
The first rushing play.
For the first time since the game began, the ball moved from the quarterback's hands to the running back's.
And the little East Asian kid they'd been treating like an invisible man—
Screech—BOOM!
He exploded off the line, chewing up the turf like a track athlete in full flight.
"Huahk!"
Only then realizing what he'd just done, Tony could think of nothing but staring straight ahead, barely registering the defense crashing in.
And then...
"No—what the hell is that..."
He watched Jaehyuk's insane movement unfold.
It was as if the kid alone could see a path invisible to everyone else—he threaded through the holes in the opposing team's formation with surgical precision.
And above all, that speed.
His initial acceleration had been unbelievably fast already, but once he built up momentum, he was moving at a pace no one on the field could hope to stop.
"He—he scored! Touchdown!"
"..."
It happened in the blink of an eye.
The defenders who'd been chasing him just stood there, staring hollowly at his receding back. Even his own teammates stood frozen, unable to say a word.
"Is that even possible? He just got lucky. That was luck, right?"
Who's the one who brought him here?
It was James—the man who'd recruited Jaehyuk—who was the only one still capable of speech.
**
He shot to his feet!
Coach Tyrone rose from where he'd been watching the game. The students out on the field might not have realized it, but from a distance, he could see the whole picture far more objectively.
"Insane... the kid's completely insane."
Luck? Sure. It could have been luck.
But Tyrone, who had once played professional football, could tell.
That movement was raw, staggering talent.
The ability to read the flow. The instinct to find the opponent's openings. And the speed to back all of it up!
Football was an organic game.
Not a rigid, piece-by-piece affair but a living, breathing sport where split-second judgments decided everything—and it was just as true right now.
The first-string defenders, never imagining a mercenary running back would be put in, had made a mistake but quickly moved to shut down Jaehyuk's path.
Strategy and tactics shifting by the second.
The first-string defense had done a fine job of sealing off the attack that had caught them off guard.
No—tried to seal it off.
'But they couldn't stop him.'
Jaehyuk moved as if he were surveying the entire field from the sky above. As if he had the opposing team's every movement and formation memorized, he slipped smoothly into nothing but their weakest points.
And then came the solo run.
His acceleration out of the defender's grasp was superb, but once he hit open space at full stride, there was simply no stopping him.
"Hold on, wait. A 10.33? Or am I imagining that he felt even faster than that?"
It had to be his imagination. A 10.33 was already an outstanding time for high school. The crushing feeling of being outclassed must have made him seem faster than he was.
Trudging back to his original position, Kim Jaehyuk soon realized the teams were switching sides and headed for the bench, still clearly fuzzy on the rules.
But that didn't matter in the slightest.
'One more time.'
If that hadn't been a fluke.
One more time. Just once more, if he showed that exact same thing...
"Hoo. No. No. That's enough. I'm getting ahead of myself."
Jaehyuk was already seventeen.
Far too old to be starting football.
Sure, he'd come from track, but track and football were different worlds entirely. Track was an individual sport; football was a team game. This was a sport where you couldn't reach the top on individual brilliance alone.
Thud.
By the time he looked over, Jaehyuk had already planted himself shamelessly on the bench.
And despite having just told himself no, the words slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them.
"This football thing—you think you can actually play it?"
**
Not bad at all.
I sat on the bench feeling my thighs about to burst, draped a towel over my face, and leaned back. A snicker kept trying to escape, and it hung dangerously at the edge of that towel.
Turns out the line was never black. The red one is the real deal!
Adrenaline surged through me.
The moment I learned the true nature of the Gift I'd misunderstood all this time, I felt myself leap to a whole new level.
No—maybe even this wasn't its true form yet.
The potential of my Gift was limitless.
And I would seize the summit.
Above the heavens and below, I alone am supreme.
Ha. Now THAT is a phrase made for me.
I will reign above everyone.
Tap.
"Hm?"
Who's interrupting my rest?
I pulled the towel aside to see who was poking me.
James, the guy who'd dragged me here, was staring right at me.
"You've seriously never played football before? Not even once?"
"I did sneak glances at the Super Bowl on TV every New Year's."
"Does that count as 'played it before'?"
"Nope."
Well, fair enough. To anyone who couldn't see my Gift, my movement out there must have looked like pure witchcraft.
My Gift shows me the optimal path of travel.
Unlike track, football demands fluid, ever-changing movement—and my ability was practically tailor-made for it.
No matter how I thought about it, my Gift suited this kind of sport far better than track...
"YEAH! Interception! He picked it off!!"
"Change of possession!"
The offensive call rang out.
James still had the face of a man bursting with questions, but I ignored him and pulled my helmet on.
Right now, there was someone else I needed to talk to first.
"Hey, quarterback."
"You..."
The moment I called him out, his expression was a sight to behold. A wildly complicated tangle of emotions was spilling across his face, but I paid it no mind.
"If you can't throw it anyway, just hand it to me like you did before."
"You little—"
I finished saying my piece and walked to my position.
The quarterback bared his teeth and glared at me, but what exactly was he going to do about it?
You're going to give me that ball whether you like it or not.
Once people taste success, they stop considering any other path. It's human nature to reach only for the safe option.
He probably wouldn't hand it off right away, but the moment he failed once more, that quarterback would give me the ball. Guaranteed.
One more time, Gift!
Though apparently, some people had taken the last play far harder than our own quarterback had.
Creeeak—
The opposing team's line of hulking linemen crouched into sumo-wrestler stances, squared up across from us. Their eyes smoldered as they stared straight at me.
"Aww, I'm sooo scared."
I flashed them a faint smile.
The helmet might have hidden it. Even if they had seen it, they weren't remotely frightening.
"Purple! Purple!"
There he goes with that gibberish again.
Listening to the quarterback barking words I couldn't understand, it was clear—as I'd predicted—that he had no intention of handing me the ball.
And soon the first snap began.
Thwack!
The quarterback clamped down hard on the ball from the center. And this time, unlike before, I moved lazily, scanning the field wide and open.
So the Gift doesn't activate when I'm not holding the ball.
It was the same on the track, and back when I slipped out of James's grip I hadn't been holding the ball either—and it had activated. Though that time it wasn't the red line.
I still didn't understand the exact conditions for the Gift to trigger.
CRACK!
WHUMP!
"Ohh!"
A vicious tackle came crashing into the quarterback.
But this time, he did manage to throw a pass.
A pass thrown off a broken stance, though—reckless from where I was standing.
"Tony, you little—!"
I could hear the coach on the bench going absolutely ballistic, but the quarterback who'd been flattened by the tackle looked completely out of it.
And the ball that dazed kid threw—
Snap!
"Interception!"
"Stop him! STOP HIM!"
—landed squarely in an opposing defender's hands.
The defender who'd stolen it charged downfield like a freight train.
And of all places, he was heading straight in my direction—the direction where I'd been loitering behind our own lines.
"Stop him! You damn monkey!"
"STOP HIM!"
Which one of these bastards just said something racist...
I tried to find the guy who'd shouted it, but the situation was too urgent.
Then, the line began to appear in my vision again.
Dark crimson.
Not the blazing scarlet from before.
It wasn't thrashing or pulsing either.
But it didn't matter.
Because that alone was enough to show me the optimal path I needed to take.
Tap!
Instead of just sprinting blindly, I moved side to side, reading where the defender would go. And the moment the dark crimson line aligned with my own path—
Snap!
I exploded along the line in an instant and clamped onto him.
At the same time, my fingertips found the ball tucked in his arm.
Ding!
Perfect defense.
The ball popped loose from his grip and hit the ground.
"FUMBLE!"
"Scoop it up, you morons! PICK IT UP!"
The instant the ball hit the turf, both teams swarmed it like wild dogs from every direction. And the man closest to the ball was none other than me.
And my Gift was... still going.
Thwack!
I snatched up the ball.
And my vision flooded red again.
Thump! Thump!
The world surged.
Dozens of red lines wove together, charting every optimal path forward I could take.
This time...
Because of the chaos of the moment, the lines kept erasing and redrawing themselves. Too many bodies flooding one patch of turf.
But among them, one line remained—thick, unbroken, radiating presence.
Thump!
And that line surged violently, as if commanding me: follow me.
Hesitate briefly, choose faster.
I slammed my foot into the ground and followed the thick line on pure instinct.
It wasn't forward.
I was retreating backward.
"Hey, DAMMIT! Where are you going?!"
A teammate's furious shout rang out, but I didn't spare it a thought.
I dropped back along the Gift's line, then cut laterally.
RATATAT!
The opposing team gave chase, but our own guys weren't about to sit idle either. While they bought me just enough cover, I finally spotted it—a long, gaping lane.
And through that lane, only one thing pulsed: a single scarlet line.
Swwwip—BOOM!
Fast. Hard. Merciless.
More! More! MORE!
FULL. THROTTLE!!
My heart pounded blood through my veins, contracting like a hammer.
My body shoving the air aside felt like tempered steel.
Swwwip!
I felt hands reaching for me midway, but I shook them off with raw power and speed. A hint of resistance—yet my stride never slowed one bit.
POP!
And after that, there was nothing.
Only the wind stood between me and the end zone.
"He—he TOOOOUCHDOOOWN! TOUCHDOWN!!"
From one end to the other.
From our own end zone all the way to theirs.
I had just recorded a 100-yard touchdown.
Tat—tatatatatat.
"Hoo... hoo... hoo."
I think I'm losing my mind. This feels AMAZING.
Then, from behind me, an inexplicable wave of cheers erupted.
"HOLY SHIT! Is that kid actually insane?!"
"HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!"
"That monkey is fast as HELL!"
I turned around to find both teams ripping off their helmets, screaming that I'd lost my mind.
Well, this is a new one.
Track is an individual sport—no such thing as a team, everyone is everyone else's rival, period. Which is why even when I set a blazing record, the only ones who genuinely celebrated were my coach and my manager.
"Hey, HEY, HEY! I'm the one who brought him in! Haha! I brought him in, I did!"
"Shove off, you fatass! Let me get my hands on this monkey too!"
There it is again—monkey. This son of a...
I almost threw a punch, but he didn't seem to mean any harm, and I was in too good a mood to bother.
Funny, though. A minute ago they were all ice-cold toward me, and now they're finally willing to give me credit.
"American teenagers really are as simple-minded as they say..."
"Huh? Jaehyuk, weren't YOU a teenager too?"
James thumped my shoulder with a huge grin, then tilted his head.
What on earth am I going to do with this dumbass white boy?