The Legend Accepts the Challenge
The next morning.
Setting foot on the field again still felt awkward, but my mood was good.
After all, the tryout meant I got to skip class.
Tyrone's sharper than I gave him credit for.
It wasn't that I was bad at studying—I just didn't like it. Granted, no student actually likes studying, though every so often there's a mutant like my little sister.
Come to think of it, I'd had a pretty long conversation with her yesterday, the first in a while. Mostly about football: how big a deal it was to join the football team, stories about world-famous players, and what kind of salaries they pulled in.
The salary part definitely whetted my appetite. It wasn't that I wanted to be rich—but at the end of the day, salary was the yardstick of this sports world.
Above all under heaven, I alone stand supreme.
A fat paycheck was proof of my results. Less about the money itself, more like a gauge of how much recognition I'd earned.
"Ooh! Jaehyuk!"
The moment I stepped onto the field, James greeted me with a familiarity that seemed absurd for someone I'd met exactly once yesterday.
So this is how these guys have been legally skipping class all along. Why doesn't the track team do the same? Useless Coach Derek.
"Wow, yesterday's hero has arrived."
"Why didn't you come to the after-party? Everyone was waiting for you."
"Hey! Looking forward to today too! The tryout!"
"Yo, you're joining, right? You have to. No question."
While I warmed up, guys whose names I didn't even know kept coming up pretending we were friends. I brushed them off without a second thought and finished stretching.
Streeeetch—
The tryout. The football team's entrance test.
In practice, it was a measuring of raw athletic ability.
Hmm.
The question was whether my Gift would even activate during a tryout. Going off everything I'd experienced so far, the conditions for my Gift's manifestation depended heavily on whether something counted as a real competition.
Beep! Beep! Beeep!
About fifteen minutes of warm-up later, Coach Tyrone finally sauntered out—and he wasn't alone.
"You've got company?"
"Who's that? An outsider?"
Beside Tyrone stood a suspicious figure: a black hat, sunglasses, and even a hood mask pulled up over his face. An unidentified man. He looked to be getting on in years, but his body was rock solid.
Somebody from the industry?
Since even the team members didn't recognize him, he was clearly not someone they saw regularly.
"Everyone, run your usual routine as always... Kim Jaehyuk!"
The moment my name was called, every eye in the place locked onto me.
"Warmed up?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then let's run the tryout right now. Manager! You ready?"
Tyrone clapped his hands, charged up the atmosphere, and the prepared list of tests rolled out:
40-yard dash. Vertical jump. Broad jump. Three-cone drill. And the shuttle run.
There'd originally been a bench press too, but they'd cut it—apparently they weren't counting on my strength.
Fair enough. Strength isn't exactly my forte.
Credit where credit's due.
I lined up for the 40-yard dash first. But the Gift that had always appeared so reliably on the track was nowhere to be found on this field.
......
Track races were timed events, sure, but they still counted as competition in some sense. The 40-yard dash I was about to run had nothing to do with real competition whatsoever—and the result showed. No matter how long I waited, the black line refused to appear.
"Haah."
I scratched my head and thought it over. Looked like my tryout numbers were going to be pretty underwhelming.
"...20-yard shuttle, 4.38."
Every physical test was done, and the mood around the field had gone ice cold.
Five events in total: the 40-yard dash, the vertical jump, the broad jump, the three-cone drill, and the shuttle run. The bench press had been on the original list too, but since they weren't expecting strength from me, it got dropped.
"Hmmm."
"Wh-what's going on?"
At Sanders's sigh, Tyrone muttered in flustered disbelief.
Should've known not to get my hopes up.
The truth was, Sanders had come here expecting something from Jaehyuk because of Tyrone's tip—Tyrone being his junior from their playing days who'd kept in touch. Sanders knew full well that Tyrone was never the type to praise anyone, which was exactly why he'd hoped.
But the results laid out before him now were bitterly disappointing.
Granted, they were solid for an ordinary person. For a high school running back, roughly the top 40 percent—honestly, calling it average wouldn't have been a stretch. From the standpoint of an NFL legend like Sanders, it was the kind of performance you'd step on without noticing.
"What the heck? Yesterday, we definitely—"
"Bad condition, maybe?"
"Did he overdo it yesterday and tweak something?"
The kids' chatter drifted over, but I paid it no mind. They'd seen enough; the verdict was already in as far as I was concerned.
"Well, I should get going."
"Ah, senpai..."
Tyrone couldn't bring himself to stop Sanders from leaving.
"What's next—catching the ball and running, right?"
At that moment Jaehyuk appeared out of nowhere and asked Tyrone, already decked out in full pads. Tyrone nodded, his expression sour.
"That's right."
"What's with the face? You look like you chewed on something nasty."
"...It's nothing."
Tyrone couldn't exactly come out and say your numbers were terrible, that's why I look like this.
But Sanders, who'd been on his way out, spoke up in his place.
"Kid, if that's the best you've got, you'd be better off not playing football at all."
"And who might you be?"
Jaehyuk looked at Tyrone instead of Sanders, as if genuinely curious, and Tyrone gave him a light introduction.
"He's my senior."
"Ah, I see."
Jaehyuk nodded, rolled the football in one hand, and smirked.
"Don't worry too much, old man. I just started playing football, so I'm at rock bottom. The only way left to go is up."
"Kim Jaehyuk. Watch your mouth."
Tyrone's warning came low and sharp. Paying it no mind, Jaehyuk kept rolling the ball and went on with a grin.
"There are still tests left—why not stay and watch the rest? If I prove it right here, that settles it, doesn't it?"
"Ha!"
Sanders finally let out a scornful laugh, as if he'd never seen anyone so absurd in his life.
"You're a funny little brat. What's a running back who runs the 40 in a measly 4.70 going to change by catching a ball?"
A 4.70 in the 40-yard dash. Not a bad number by any means—but it was ordinary high school running back territory, a figure that fell far short of what you'd expect from a track team's ace. That was exactly why everyone here was so deflated.
"It might change something. Feel free to check for yourself, since you're here anyway."
Jaehyuk kept needling, and finally Tyrone couldn't take it anymore and shouted.
"Kim Jaehyuk! Show some respect. This is Barry Sanders. The legendary NFL running back—the living history of football itself!"
"B-Barry Sanders?!"
The reaction exploded from the team members. Barry Sanders was the greatest thing Wichita North High School had ever produced, a legend who'd carved his name into the history of the sport.
But Jaehyuk, who knew absolutely nothing about football, only tilted his head.
"Barry Sanders? Sounds like he was pretty famous?"
"You call that a response—?!"
The crowd recoiled in horror at his nonchalance. Tyrone and the other players stared at Jaehyuk's face with expressions of pure incredulity.
"He wouldn't know, that's all. What's with everybody?"
"PUHAHAHA!"
Sanders finally burst out laughing. He took off his sunglasses and wiped tears from his eyes.
"You really are rock bottom, huh. You don't know a thing about me."
"By the way, old man."
"Hmm?"
Sanders met Jaehyuk's eyes as the boy stared straight at him—and a chill ran down his spine.
Those eyes...
A fierce gaze, as if sizing him up as prey. Once people learned who he was, all they ever sent his way was reverence—or, failing that, they got scared and looked away. He hadn't received a single provocative look like that in years. The last time someone had looked at him like that...
Was back when I was still playing, wasn't it?
Lost in that thought, Sanders heard Jaehyuk's voice pierce straight into his ear.
"If you were a legend, you must've been pretty good back in the day. But at your age, I doubt you could handle being my opponent."
In an instant.
Every sound on the field died.
Sanders, who'd been turning to leave, stopped mid-stride. Behind the dark lenses, his unseen gaze sharpened to a blade.
"Are you provoking me right now? Heh heh."
The moment a wolfish smile crept across his lips, a glacial tension swallowed the field whole. The overwhelming presence he'd been suppressing beneath the hood, the sunglasses, and the cap came flooding out all at once, slicing into everyone around him like shrapnel.
It was the murderous aura of a beast that had caught the scent of its quarry. The Sanders who'd seemed, until now, like nothing more than a mild-mannered ordinary middle-aged man was no ordinary outsider anymore.
Someone took an involuntary step backward. A few of the players standing behind him froze without so much as breathing properly. Even Tyrone, for this one moment, could only watch nervously and keep his mouth shut.
"Gulp."
In the silence, the sound of someone swallowing rang out, oddly loud.
With every eye fixed on him, Sanders slowly raised a hand and pulled off his cap. When the dark sunglasses came off too, a gaze like a hawk's talons drove straight into Jaehyuk.
"That provocation of yours."
A low, gravelly voice—yet heavier and harder than anything else on that field.
"I accept, brat."
Those few words crushed the entire field under their weight.
"A one-on-one with Barry Sanders..."
"Insane. I'd kill to try that!"
"This is the kind of story you brag about to other schools."
Chaos broke out among the team members. Thank goodness it was during class—otherwise students who weren't even on the team would've swarmed the place.
"But can Jaehyuk actually beat him?"
"Dream on. Yeah, Sanders is in his fifties, but he's a running back who owned an entire era. He won the Heisman without even being a quarterback, took season MVP, went to ten Pro Bowls—one of the greatest running backs of all time."
"Honestly, our team winning the championship this season would be easier than that monkey beating him. Haha!"
Listening to the kids chatter, I took a deep, slow breath.
Clench.
Thankfully, the borrowed gloves fit perfectly. The football in my hand was tucked into the ideal position between my palm and ribs, exactly as James had shown me.
Ahead of me, cones marked out a narrow path—and straddling the middle of it stood a giant.
Barry Sanders.
His presence had been piercing through me since a moment ago. He wasn't tall—quite the opposite. He was small to the point of being unbelievable for a football player, smaller than me, end of story. And yet somehow, I kept feeling like I had to be looking up at him.
An overwhelming intensity that bordered on bloodlust. Feeling it, strangely enough, made me feel more alive than ever.
"Heh heh."
Adrenaline surged and my head spun. Sure, the provocation had been impulsive at first—but looking back now, it was the best call I could've made.
That's why they call him a legend, huh!
Facing a man like this. Just imagining pitting my talent—everything I had—against him made my whole body tremble. This was a feeling track had never once given me.
"Move on the whistle!"
Tyrone's voice reached me, but it sounded distant. Every single cell in my body was locked onto Barry Sanders.
Shiiiing—
Maybe he sensed it too, because a feral grin spread across Sanders's face—and his aura, the very air around him, grew even fiercer.
BEEEEEP—!
The whistle blew, and I moved without missing a beat.
CRUNCH!
The tips of my toes dug into the turf, grinding dirt beneath them. Kinetic energy flooded through my whole body—and at that exact moment:
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The red lines went wild, even though this wasn't a real match. A festival of the Gift churning far more violently than usual—and even while sprinting flat-out, something shocked me.
"!!"
The Gift was erasing and redrawing itself in a frenzy, over and over. But around Barry Sanders, there was nothing.
Vacancy. No lines to be seen. To be precise, everything near him had vanished as if wiped out of existence.
No—that's not it!
They hadn't disappeared. They hadn't been erased. They simply didn't exist yet—an unknowable future. Of all these countless red lines, I would have to choose one and break through him myself.
WHAM!
Sanders moved the instant my first footstrike hit the ground. The red lines convulsed again. Think. Choose. Focus.
TAP.
I picked a single line burning thick and bright—and the moment I did, vitality surged through my whole body, power flooding into the legs driving off the ground.
SCREEECH!
A strange shriek tore from my shoes as I dropped my hips slightly and exploded into a sprint!
FWOOSH—!!
And there it was—faint, but unmistakable: a flash of shock on Sanders's face.
But then.
Heh—
"Not a chance, brat."
That's what his expression said, loud as any words.
TA-TA-TAK!
A rough roar of footsteps thundered after me. The instant I instinctively lifted my gaze, I saw it: the movement of a beast launching itself off the earth and hurtling at me. Grass scattered into the air.
Sanders, who'd been right in front of me seconds ago, had already locked his trajectory onto my flank and was charging dead-on.
"Hahh, hahh."
"Heh heh."
We were close enough to hear each other's breathing. And in a blink, the red lines vanished from my sight.
NOW!
Just once. Something had flickered, faint as a spark. I leaned my body into that glimmer, twisting my ankle at an angle that burned with strain.
FWEEENG!
My body whirled in an instant—and the same instant, violent resistance slammed into me. Hands like iron chains coiling around my body, trying to lock me down. But my spin move tore me free, barely.
Flash.
A crimson light, blazing sharp and clear. The moment my foot found it again, my body accelerated as if bursting open from within.
PA-ANG—!
I broke past him. Clean.
The very instant I was sure of it—
BEEP—!
"That's the end of the match!"
The whistle screamed, and Tyrone's voice filled the field.