Just As Promised
Offense and defense switched sides.
Since it was the same personnel rotating through both units, fatigue was already starting to show — faces everywhere were quietly begging to bow out.
"It's only been seven minutes. Dig in."
I checked the clock as I said it to the team. To my relief, nobody seemed deflated about giving up that score.
"Jaehyuk."
"Hm?"
The quarterback called me over. What was his name again? Noah something-or-other...
As I approached, he lowered his voice.
"Can you destroy one of them for me?"
He's whispering, and what he's whispering is a request to blow somebody up.
I'm starting to like this kid.
"Of course I can."
"Awesome."
Noah stared off into empty space, muttering to himself as he sketched out a play in his head, then gave a big, decisive nod.
He's an unusual quarterback too.
Is there not a single normal one among them?
"Hoo!"
Before long, he gathered the players and called the play. We took our positions right after.
Ah — hold on a second.
There was something I wanted to say first.
"One spin move."
At my sudden announcement, every player on the field turned their eyes on me.
They all wore the same expression: what is he talking about?
"I'll slip one guy with a juke, fool everyone with a cutback, then score the touchdown."
"......"
The players' faces said it all — no way. He can't mean it.
Even Noah, the very one who'd asked me to destroy somebody, had turned around to stare at me, his face a portrait of utter disbelief.
"Begin."
Had my provocation actually landed? The opposing linemen were glaring at me, visibly fuming.
Heh. What are you going to do about it?
You're too slow to catch me anyway.
"Hoo, set! Turtle! Turtle! Sixteen! Ready, ready......"
The moment I heard Noah's play call, I let out a sigh.
That play was a run fake followed by a pass.
'You told me to destroy them.'
You still don't trust me?
Granted, strategically speaking, it wasn't a bad call. But look at the opponents' faces. Wasn't every single one of them fixated on me?
"Hut hut!"
The play began. The ball vanished into the quarterback's hands, and at the same instant I took off along the black line toward it.
Just before reaching the ball, I stuttered — a light juke to bait the defense — then made a feinting motion of tucking it into my arms.
"Hmph!!"
"Hoook!"
They bit.
Two second-level defenders, thoroughly fooled, came charging at me like they were determined to dig through a wall to get to me.
I drifted toward the outside line as if trying to evade them — and the moment they closed in, I threw my whole body into a spin move, ball or no ball.
Whiir.
A full spin without dropping my stride.
The sheer speed of my rotation flustered one of them so badly he flailed. Thud. He reached out, desperate for a grab, but the momentum of the spin peeled his grip right off me.
Then the second defender launched a rough tackle at me the instant my spin finished.
Perfect timing!
Except the situation couldn't have been worse for him.
The black line had just cut off. Which meant: stop, right here, right now.
Screech!
The spin ended and I planted myself dead on the spot, speed completely unspent.
Whoosh — CRASH!
"Ghh."
The defender who'd flung himself into the tackle sailed clean past and dove straight into the grass.
My Oscar-worthy ball-carrier acting had done its job. By now even the third level of the defense looked thoroughly hooked. Half the opposing team had noticed there was no ball in my hands — but the other half were still flapping around on the line like prize fish.
Ta-da-da-dak!
They came sprinting at me with everything they had.
The ones behind me who'd caught on to the fake, unfortunately, were all busy chasing their assigned receivers, with no window to spread the word.
"Heh heh."
Grinning all the while, I cut back mid-sprint.
The instant I changed direction, the defenders chased me to death — no longer even checking whether I had the ball, just mayflies hurling themselves at a light.
Crash.
And then, in that moment, one player realized something was wrong and skidded to a halt.
One by one, the others caught on too, and their eyes dropped to my hands.
Hands that had run the whole field cradling something that wasn't there.
"!!"
Too late, they realized they'd chased the wrong man and whipped their heads around — but the pass had already sailed.
Worse, our receiver was already sprinting hard into the end zone.
Triiin!
"Touchdown!"
Nothing in the world could have been more delightful than the hollow looks on the defenders who'd chased me.
"Haa... haa."
"Heok, heok."
To the men gasping for air, I offered a few choice words — delivered with style.
"One spin move. Slip one guy with a juke, fool everyone with a cutback, then score the touchdown. That's how it went, right?"
"......"
Their expressions upon hearing my words were a sight to behold.
**
"That wasn't a running play?"
Ralph's jaw hung wide open as he watched. And he wasn't alone — nearly everyone on the sidelines had eyes only for Jaehyuk.
Especially this time, since Jaehyuk had announced the play in advance, plenty of people had been watching purely to see whether he'd actually do exactly what he said.
And in a sense, he had done exactly that. Everyone reacted with shock and admiration, applauding Jaehyuk — while the players who'd actually scored the points were left out in the cold.
"That's what makes football beautiful."
Ralph gave a hollow laugh at David's visibly smug remark.
"I'm speechless, that's what."
"Weren't you heading back on the second day, though? This is your busiest season, isn't it?"
"......"
February held National Signing Day — the day high school seniors decided which colleges they'd attend and made it official with their signatures.
With less than a month left, scouts had to be moving harder than anyone right now.
"And what about you? Aren't you standing around here same as me?"
"Someone has to look after Jaehyuk. You're saying that to me, after what you just watched?"
"Hnngh."
Ralph glared at him, eyes narrowed with pure envy, and every time he did, David savored the feeling like an ice-cold soda and turned his head away as if nothing had happened.
"What the hell was that?! What kind of idiotic play was that?!"
Then, out of nowhere, someone began shouting rudely at full volume.
At the sudden voice, every head turned. There stood a cluster of people dressed far too flamboyantly for the mood of the place.
"What are you all staring at? Am I wrong?! You're supposed to watch the quarterback — that was obviously a run fake, so why on earth did everyone chase the running back?"
The woman's eyes bulged as she spoke under the weight of everyone's stares, and David murmured the moment he recognized her.
"Why on earth would she come to a high school skills camp."
He'd heard the news — celebrities collaborating with Nike and Under Armour were supposed to stop by and watch today. He just never expected them to spout something that rude. Official schedule or not, this was no place to carry on like that, not with a crowd this size......
"They're probably lost because they don't understand the game."
"And if you don't understand, the least you can do is stay quiet. Tsk tsk."
Meanwhile, the game had restarted. Offense and defense traded sides again, and the plays came one after another without a breath of rest.
The first quarter wasn't even over yet, and already the players' chests were starting to heave.
'Hmm......'
And Jaehyuk?
He'd been sprinting his heart out not a minute ago, yet he showed no sign of it at all, calmly scanning the field.
'That guy is just built different.'
Watching him in training, you'd never guess his conditioning was anything special — but in actual games, he displayed monstrous stamina and skill. In fact, when David had spoken privately with head coach Barry Sanders, even the coach had called it a mystery.
Thud!
"Aaah!"
"Dammit!"
Groans rippled through the crowd, punctuated by the dull sound of a ball knocked loose. David turned — and saw the ball flying out of bounds. Beneath its arc, Jaehyuk lay tangled up with the receiver who'd been trying to catch it.
The first failed pass of the game. The moment a crack finally appeared in Mateo's ironclad passing.
**
"......"
Mateo stared, expressionless as ever, at Jaehyuk, who had knocked down the pass.
From a distance, Jaehyuk brushed himself off and rose without a care in the world, soaking up the cheers of his teammates.
"Hey! Rodriguez! You're fine — just hit it again next time."
"Yeah. Your passes are impossible to stop anyway. He got lucky once, that's all."
A few teammates came over to offer comfort. But everyone — Mateo included — knew the truth.
Kim Jaehyuk. That guy had already seen straight through him.
"Hmm......"
Mateo thought it over. The correction from yesterday must have shown Jaehyuk something. The kid had always had extraordinary eyes. It was very likely he'd caught some small habit even Mateo himself didn't know he had.
'I'll have to ask him what it was later.'
Not that asking now would get him an answer.
Jaehyuk and Mateo alike were desperate in this game. For Mateo, the sponsorship from a famous brand — the final prize of this camp — was something he badly needed. Adjusting to his newly corrected form meant his results might dip for a while. If that happened, his backing would naturally shrink, and with money this tight, the sponsor meant everything to him.
"Let's go again! Come on, everyone, set your stance!"
At the center's shout, Mateo's team lined up. The last pass had failed, so they'd restart from the exact same spot.
'What is he reading?'
Mateo, who had always drawn up plays and thrown passes on pure instinct, found his head growing murky. In the end he simply called the play the way he always did, then barked the cadence.
"Hut! Hike!"
Snap!
The ball settled perfectly into his hands. In an instant, chaos erupted in front of him, and Mateo shuffled through his drop with quick, uneven steps.
'There.'
Any number of passing lanes opened up before his eyes. Doing his utmost not to tip them off with his gaze, Mateo fired a no-look pass.
"Whoaaaa!"
"A no-look pass?! What is that...?!"
"That's Rodriguez for you — the generational talent, the genius......"
Now, what do you think of this?
Bathing in the crowd's roar, Mateo turned his head back.
Could you predict this one too?
"?!"
Jaehyuk was already running.
Straight toward the ball.
'He... read it again......'
If even a no-look pass had been read, there was no doubt left.
Something was wrong with his mechanics.
Ting!
Jaehyuk batted the ball away yet again — and it had been a heart-stopping play, one hair's breadth from turning into an interception. The air in the stands and on the sideline turned ice-cold, as if everyone had been utterly crushed by this monster who chased down even no-look passes.
What was more, Jaehyuk didn't look tired in the slightest despite all that running. Standing tall and proud at the center of the field, staring down the opposing team, he made the nation's finest players hold their breath.
"Gulp."
One of the linemen guarding Mateo swallowed dryly, frightened out of proportion to his own massive frame.
The rest of the team had gone quiet too, morale visibly broken.
"Hey!"
And then, like a hammer driving in the nail — Jaehyuk spoke.
His frame was small, without question. And yet it felt as though something enormous were addressing them.
"The game hasn't even properly started yet. Why are you already dead on your feet, you pathetic bastards?"
Jaehyuk tilted his helmet up slightly and smiled, fierce and feral.
"You're calling it quits over this? I've still got plenty left to prove. Is this all you've got?"
Is this guy insane?
Provoking the enemy right after breaking their spirit — everyone stared at him in sheer disbelief.
But Mateo understood.
Winning and losing weren't what mattered to Jaehyuk.
All Jaehyuk wanted was to be the best. And for that, his opponent had to be the best as well. Which meant Jaehyuk was provoking them deliberately — baiting them into giving everything they had.
'Peak performance in the worst possible circumstances.'
What a completely deranged human being.
And yet, somehow, Mateo found Jaehyuk more and more fun to face.
"Me too......"
In the end, Mateo opened his mouth, unable to hold it in any longer. Every eye in the place swung to him. He'd barely spoken a word outside of play calls and cadences, so everyone watched in astonishment.
"I'm going to prove it too."
His mind was made up. He carved his resolve deep.
The camp? The sponsorship? The game?
No — forget all the small stuff.
Only one thing: the craving to be the absolute best. That alone was enough.
Just like the day he first picked up a football.
Whoosh.
Mateo's eyes, burning cold and white-hot, came to rest on Jaehyuk. And through gritted teeth, he hurled the words out with all the force he had.
"I'll show you... that I'm the real best."