The Red Line's Return Show
Jaehyuk strode into the end zone as casually as if he were walking into his own bedroom, then turned back toward the bench.
Behind him, the freshmen clutched their heads or covered their mouths in sheer disbelief.
"Did you see that? Did you SEE that?!"
"Whoa! I can't believe I'm watching the Redline in an actual game!"
"Man, I'm so glad I enrolled at this school. I should thank my parents······."
And then there was one boy — the boy who admired Jaehyuk more than anyone else here — who was outright crying tears of joy.
The Redline he had only ever watched from the stands was now running alongside him, as a teammate on the same field. The sheer emotion of it overwhelmed him.
"A run straight up the middle that shattered the line of scrimmage, then three stiff-arms to crumble the second wave of defenders, and a touchdown······. That was incredible, Captain!! Sniff!"
Joseph grabbed a nearby coach and excitedly explained every detail, then turned his gaze back to Jaehyuk, who was walking silently back to the sideline.
What a beautiful sight.
Joseph wanted nothing more than to be out there running the field beside him, right this very moment.
"Woo-hoo!"
"Go! Wichita North! Go!"
"REDDLIIINE!!"
Just look at this atmosphere — you could feel it in your bones.
An unbelievable number of spectators had packed the stands for what was supposed to be just a Kansas high school league game.
Their roaring cheers reverberated through the stadium hard enough to make your whole body tingle.
"Redline!!"
"Redline!!"
Soon the crowd began chanting Jaehyuk's nickname in perfect rhythm.
That massive wall of sound swallowed the entire stadium in seconds.
'THAT is what a true franchise star looks like!'
Jaehyuk — there was no doubt he was destined to become a football player who would define an era.
"Good work out there."
That was all Sanders said as Jaehyuk jogged back.
At the same time, the freshmen kept their distance now, none of them daring to approach Jaehyuk the way they had before. Something about him after that touchdown — returning from the end zone like a god descending from the heavens — commanded a kind of awe.
"Coach."
"Hmm?"
"I'm going to stretch the score out a bit, so why not let our young pups get some snaps on the field?"
Jaehyuk said it as casually as he pulled off his helmet.
As if putting points on the board were the most trivial thing in the world.
"Build a lead of at least twenty, and I'll let them run."
"That won't take long."
The extra point was good.
7–0.
Only fifteen seconds had come off the clock.
The opponent's ensuing possession followed.
But their offense was painfully conservative — they burned through downs and burned through time without ever threatening to score.
Finally, Wichita East was forced into a punt — kicking the ball as far downfield as possible while surrendering possession.
And at the sight of it, Jaehyuk rose to his feet once again.
"So this year I'm allowed?"
"Go ahead. Cut loose."
Joseph, baffled by the exchange, turned to Tyrone beside him.
"What does he mean, 'this year'?"
"Ah, right. Last year Jaehyuk had just started playing football, so the coach wouldn't let him do anything besides running back. Too much risk of injury, he said."
"Ohhh······."
Hearing the timeline of Jaehyuk's football debut again through Tyrone's mouth left Joseph with a strange feeling.
That guy had really only been playing football for a single year?
As everyone watched Jaehyuk take the field, they quickly realized what he'd be doing.
He was going to return punts. His job would be to catch the ball booted by the opposing punter and run it back — a role played amid far more chaos and congestion than an ordinary running play.
But for Jaehyuk, it was the perfect conditions.
As long as he could secure the incoming catch, with his Gift, it would be a piece of cake.
'Gulp.'
Joseph swept a hand down his arm, brushing away goosebumps that refused to settle.
But everyone in the stadium had already reached the same conclusion.
Jaehyuk as a returner?
Nobody on this earth was going to stop him.
Beep!
A crisp whistle blew.
BOOM!
The ball soared high into the sky.
At once, every player on both teams took off running, eyes locked on the football, bodies tangling and colliding before the ball even came down.
And then —
THUD!
Jaehyuk caught the ball just inside his own end zone.
The KSHSAA broadcast booth clenched their fists as one, watching Jaehyuk line up on the field.
"No way······!"
"It was strange that he hadn't appeared until now! Kim Jaehyuk is returning punts for the first time this season!"
Wichita East had been stonewalled by the North defense and faced 4th & 15 — their final down, with a full fifteen yards still needed for a first down.
Worse, they remained pinned near their own 20-yard line with no room to advance, so a punt was the only call.
Just as they sent out their kicker —
Wichita North unveiled its own strategic weapon.
The broadcast booth instantly caught fire, its heat matching the stadium itself.
"Ah, and Wichita East head coach Reynolds does not look pleased at all right now."
"They'll want to avoid kicking anywhere near Jaehyuk, even if it costs them distance."
BOOM—!
"The very instant we said that — the ball is away!"
"Ah, that's a bad angle! Jaehyuk is drifting toward the ball's landing point already!"
Could he actually bring it in cleanly?
Catching had always been the one weakness anyone ever pinned on Jaehyuk — and now every eye fixated on this very moment.
THUD!!
The ball landed in Jaehyuk's arms.
He wobbled for an instant — a heart-stopping stutter — but somehow he held on, refusing to let it slip.
"HE'S GOT IT!!!"
"And the Redline is off the moment the ball touches his hands! Charging toward him are the Wichita East players, stampeding like a herd of buffalo!"
And from that instant —
Jaehyuk's showtime began.
Whoosh!
"A spin move!"
Tak!
"A cutback!"
"Does the man have eyes in the back of his head?! He dodged the tackle coming in from behind!"
Duh-duh-DAH!
"He's past him! Past another one!"
"Ah, and his teammates are blocking beautifully for him! Can he go all the way to the end zone?!"
"This isn't a football game anymore — this is the Redline Show! There doesn't appear to be a single thing anyone can do to stop him!"
"40!"
"30!"
"The 20! And from here —"
CRASH!
"TOUCHDOWN!"
"An utterly overwhelming performance! The Redline is alive and well! It seems no one in the high school ranks can stop this man!"
"Ability so monstrous it erases even the presence of his own teammates, Mateo Rodriguez and Quinton Gibson! Will we truly have to wait for the college ranks to see the Redline contained?!"
Jaehyuk's movement simply couldn't be captured by a word as small as fast.
Even the fans watching live from the stands were left wondering how on earth he'd carved through that swarm of defenders — he seemed to teleport across the field.
"Shouldn't somebody inspect that helmet of his?! I swear there's a drone camera feed playing inside it!"
"WOOOOO!! REDLINE!! You're the reason I survive my day job!"
"The pride of Kansas! The star of Asia! REDLIIIIIIINE!!!"
The gap widened in the blink of an eye.
With Jaehyuk's return touchdown, the score was already 14–0.
From Wichita East's perspective, it was brutal — they'd just finished an offensive series and were being sent right back out onto the field. It was still early in the game, and already their legs were draining fast.
"Don't you dare slack off on defense just because the captain's eating all the points! The second I see anyone coasting, it's hell week — weekends included!"
"YES SIR!!"
Morale shot so high it threatened to pierce the sky.
Trusting in Jaehyuk, the Wichita North defense redoubled its pressure and slammed the door shut.
The opponents, by contrast, looked like a team that had already lost its will to fight. And that fatal lapse cost them dearly.
"Fumble!"
"Get on it, you idiots!"
"The ball! The ball! No — right! Behind you! THERE!"
The opponent had dropped the ball mid-play.
After a brief scramble of flailing bodies, Wichita North came up with the football.
"NICE!!"
"Hell yes! The heavens are on our side!"
"Forget the heavens — that's just the talent gap!"
The next series of plays unfolded.
The enemy defense, already badly rattled by Jaehyuk, couldn't get its bearings back.
And then there was Wichita North's quarterback······.
"Mateo Rodriguez!! What a gorgeous pass!"
"And Quinton Gibson, in his high school debut, is making sensational catches too! Did you see that? A one-handed grab!"
It was a one-two punch that drained all the fight out of the opponent.
Bracket Jaehyuk, and the pass would fly. Ignore Jaehyuk, and the run would begin.
Better yet, thanks to daily form corrections alongside Jaehyuk, Mateo's mechanics had grown remarkably polished. His passes were sharper than ever, and his movement inside the pocket had improved dramatically.
All of it traced back to that rebuilt throwing motion.
And with the chronic shoulder pain gone entirely, Mateo had become a human launchpad firing rockets downfield.
"Ah······. Wichita East is completely helpless······."
"That wraps the first half. The score: 42–0. Wichita East faces a situation where there is simply no opening to exploit."
Even with the game so thoroughly lopsided, the viewers' reactions were overwhelmingly positive.
Most people were simply eager to watch Jaehyuk and Wichita North's new crop of prospects show what they could do.
Tough luck for the opposing team, but for the crowd, the staggering talent gap was its own kind of satisfaction.
When the second half kicked off, the rosters rotated wholesale, with reserves flooding onto the field.
With the score sitting at an insurmountable 42–0, it was the perfect chance to rest the starters while giving the second-stringers real game experience.
"BOOOO!!"
"Redline! Get back out here!"
"Seriously, they're pulling him NOW? This is torture!"
A few boos rippled through the stands, but once the second half was underway, the crowd refocused. Watching the reserves put on a surprisingly respectable performance, they were soon absorbed in the game again.
"RUN! RUUUN!!"
"Yes! That's it!"
"Ho-lee — did you SEE that tackle?!"
With the playing field suddenly leveled, the game took on a dramatic new intensity. There were even fans moved to tears watching the second stringers scrape out touchdowns they'd all taken for granted when Jaehyuk scored them.
"Woo-hoo!"
"Hell yeah! Now that's football!"
"Great job! Great job, kid!"
The opposing team, meanwhile, had spent far more gas in that scorching first half. For the reserves, it was flawless, real-game experience.
"Captain! I scored a touchdown!"
Joseph came sprinting over, his eyes rimmed red.
He'd just ground out a touchdown by powering through a short-yardage pile.
"Saw it. Not bad."
"Sniff! Thank you, sir!"
His first touchdown since his high school debut.
In the very first game of the regular season, no less.
For Joseph, it was almost too much to bear.
Jaehyuk, for his part, just stared at him, wondering what on earth was going on.
'A touchdown? Isn't that just... running with the ball?'
The thought flickered through his head — mercifully, it never made it out of his mouth.
The game rolled on like that, and in the end it finished 66–3.
A crushing statement of a win — the true opening shot of the regular season.
Even setting the score aside, the quality of the play alone was enough to make jaws hit the floor.
"Jaehyuk, look over there. You know that whole section is nothing but scouts?"
"There've got to be two hundred of them. All scouts. Insane."
A literal truckload of scouts had shown up, all hoping to scrape together even a sliver of inside information.
Having recently signed with the agency Sanders had introduced him to, Jaehyuk now routed nearly everything through them.
"Let's head back and run through the film of today's game."
"Uuugh."
"Our captain is absolutely merciless······."
Merciless? What was merciless about it?
Wasn't watching film fun?
Jaehyuk felt a flicker of genuine confusion as he stood to go shake hands with the opposing players.
Already sketching the next game in his head.
Week 2 of KSHSAA play: a win, 83–6.
Week 3: a win, 58–0.
Week 4: a win, 63–7.
.
.
.
Wichita North was a juggernaut, an unstoppable steamroller.
Every single week, the game result ran across the front page of the local paper in letters the size of door panels.
The Wichita North football program had become a local institution, a living legend of the region.
And as if answering everyone's expectations, they kept chalking up a perfect, unblemished record, just as they had the year before.
10 wins, 0 losses. First in the district.
For years, only Texas and Florida had generated any real buzz in the high school ranks — now the entire football world was fixated on the Kansas league because of this one team.
Unlike last year, there wasn't an online outlet that hadn't run a story, the coverage of Wichita North and Jaehyuk packed wall to wall.
Counting last season, Wichita North had now strung together an astonishing 22-game winning streak, storming into the playoffs with utterly dominant numbers.
The Kings of Kansas, chasing a second consecutive state championship.
And waiting for them in the semifinals was Blue Valley High School — the very team they had beaten in last year's final.