First Blood in the Scrimmage
Bill Belichick, head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, greeted Kalen DeBoer with a bright, easy smile.
"Coach DeBoer! I can't remember the last time we crossed paths. How have you been?"
"Getting by. You're looking well yourself, Coach Belichick."
"Ah, I've been so excited for today's scrimmage I could barely sleep. My skin's a disaster, honestly."
Belichick chuckled lightly, then stole a glance at the field.
"Though I have to wonder—those players you've fielded today don't look much like starters, do they?"
"It's a scrimmage. We need to test the guys who don't usually get playing time."
"Hmm? The Tar Heels brought our full starting lineup. That's rather disappointing of you."
At Belichick's words, DeBoer swallowed the anger rising in his chest.
Pitting the Crimson Tide's starters against the Tar Heels was absurd on its face. The gap between the two teams was simply that wide. Alabama's position was that UNC should be grateful just to face the second string. And yet here was Belichick, needling him with syrupy politeness.
Are you still the Crimson Tide of old? Haven't the Tar Heels become the ones who can finally pick on you?
"...They're not the full starters, but they're close. Some of them are starters outright."
"Hmm. And yet I see a lot of unfamiliar faces for a group like that... That one in particular I've never seen before in my life."
The player Belichick pointed at was Jaehyuk—number 21 stitched across his back, his frame noticeably leaner than the players around him.
"Our new starting running back, just joined the team this season. His name is Kim Jaehyuk."
"Ah! Kim Jaehyuk! So that's him. The number-two running back of the 2026 class. Is this his first college game, by any chance?"
"It would be."
"Hahaha. Well then. A brand-new freshman straight out of high school, and his first taste of college football comes against us. He has no idea what level the college game is played at yet—but he'll certainly learn his lesson today."
Facing Belichick's smugness, DeBoer forced his expression to stay flat. And he actually considered swapping players right then and there.
No. I have my pride.
He couldn't possibly field a starting lineup against the North Carolina Tar Heels of all teams. So for now, the second string would simply have to carry the day.
And besides...
Crack. Pop.
Watching Jaehyuk work through his warmups, DeBoer clenched his fist.
The spring training sessions had been recently completed. For Jaehyuk, who'd enrolled early, they should have been the perfect adjustment period. But across every drill, his athletic numbers were dead last—bottom of the entire Alabama roster.
It had thrown even DeBoer, who'd watched the practices with his own eyes, completely off balance.
Is he in bad shape? Injured somewhere? Or has someone been swapped in for the man we recruited?
While every stray thought whirled through his head, today had finally arrived. As it happened, the plan had always been to test Jaehyuk in this scrimmage from the moment they signed him, so the timing was right.
Except that thanks to Belichick's provocations, winning now mattered just a little more than evaluating his players did.
You have to win! Jaehyuk!
He'd even held a one-on-one meeting with the kid over those dismal training results. And what Jaehyuk had said back then—
'I'm strong in live games.'
He remembered how absurd the claim had sounded the first time he heard it. Which meant the time to prove those words had now come.
"Fair play."
"Fair play."
The two coaches parted ways and the teams made their final preparations. DeBoer gave his players only the briefest of instructions—second string or not, these were men who had flown around the field in their day, and they knew what to do without being told.
"Ah—ah. Can you hear me?"
"Yes, loud and clear."
"Cade, we're running it on the first drive."
"Got it, Coach."
All right, Kim Jaehyuk. I've built you your battlefield. Now go raise hell on it. The time has come to prove yourself.
CRACK—!!
It was as if a gunshot had rung out beside my ear. My two legs broke into motion on the beat.
Thump-thump.
Deep, seething crimson. The Gift, surging red as if about to boil over at any second, urged me on like it was demanding I take the ball already.
Swish—
Tap.
I cradled the ball the quarterback handed off into my chest and exploded forward.
"Hngh."
The first time syncing my breath with my new teammates. Jaden was driving open the middle of the line at that very moment.
Thump-thump.
Red lines splitting off in every direction. I had to read them fast and commit to one.
Wham! Bam!
"Grrgh!"
"Nghh!"
When in doubt, hit them head-on. I trusted the lane Jaden was carving open for me. Unlike the others, he crushed his blockers with raw power, showing the true pedigree of a starter—and the red line burned brightest right through the gap he tore loose.
Bam-ba-bam!
"Stop him! Up the middle!"
Someone's shout reached me.
You think you can stop me?
Scritch.
Boundless strength surged up from the feet trampling the turf. The red Gift, activated for the first time in ages, drove upward from my soles and stabbed all the way into my skull.
Fast. Hard. Merciless.
WHUMP!
The wind split around me like a cannonball tearing through the air. I threaded the narrow seam between the linemen and slammed straight into the second level of defenders.
Hard deceleration!
Screeeech!
My body pitched violently as the brakes grabbed, and that very lurch sent the defenders reeling. I could see the eyes behind their helmets flooding with panic.
Grin.
Maybe they caught my smile. They flailed after me, scrambling to bring down the accelerating blur I'd become—but I wasn't a man their hands could catch.
WHACK!
I vaulted over the fallen bodies and kept running. The remaining second and third levels of the defense tried to converge on me, but mercifully, my own players weren't standing around watching either.
CRACK!
WHAM!
Collisions rang out all across the field. And even in that tangle of bodies, the red line shone clear as day—straight one moment, zigzagging the next, twisting through impossible knots. Sometimes it pulled me back a few steps, sometimes it told me to spin. An ability that was nothing short of cheating.
Tap-tap-tap.
And there, at the end of the red line—
The end zone was waiting.
"Touchdown."
My first game since entering college. And I unveiled a kickoff-style statement touchdown right from the opening drive.
WHAP!!
An uppercut sliced through the empty air. Kalen DeBoer had just displayed emotion in a way few had ever witnessed.
"Holy sh*t!"
"What did we just see? How is he moving along those paths?"
"The exact same performance from his high school tape! And it WORKS at the college level!"
The coaching staff had descended into chaos. The opening-drive touchdown hit that hard.
"Tell me we're recording this."
"Yes, Coach! Camera's rolling right now."
He'd have to review the footage the moment they got back. The eighty-yard touchdown Jaehyuk had just engineered was a truly extraordinary showing.
That can happen in high school ball. But for it to work in college—D1, which is practically semi-pro—makes it something special.
The biggest difference between high school and college football was, as ever, tactics and team play. It was an environment where even a player who'd been devouring opponents single-handedly could be brought to his knees by schemes and strategy. One hand can't hold down ten.
And yet Jaehyuk had shattered the opposition as if nothing had changed at all—a performance in complete contradiction to everything he'd shown in practice.
It's like he's reading every situation on the field at once.
In one stroke, DeBoer caught a piece of Jaehyuk's real talent. Truth be told, the most broken thing about Jaehyuk wasn't his physical gifts—it was those paths, moving to exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
Athletes with elite measurables were a dime a dozen in this business. The nine other running backs competing with Jaehyuk for the starting job all possessed abilities ordinary people couldn't dream of. But there was one thing that separated them from Jaehyuk.
That. Exactly that.
An instinctive feel for the run?
An overwhelming sense of space and flow. Movement routes that were nothing short of intoxicatingly beautiful. He wasn't even always charging forward—Jaehyuk would boldly choose to retreat a few steps without hesitation. That was a movement no one else on the field made. It belonged to Jaehyuk alone.
Naturally, some coaches frowned on such dangerous, high-risk play. But among Alabama's aggressive staff, not a single man would take issue with it.
"Coach, we just brought in a certified lunatic."
"Honestly, after practice I was only half-convinced—no, I barely believed in him at all. I apologize to my past self. Jaehyuk really is the type who thrives in live games!"
And who could blame the doubters, really? A player whose practice form and game form sat at opposite poles this extreme was rare—no, unprecedented.
DeBoer glanced across the field and found Belichick's face rotting into something sour.
"Heh heh."
Serves you right. You were so full of yourself a minute ago.
Of course, this was entirely Jaehyuk's accomplishment. It wasn't DeBoer's place to strut about it. But wasn't a teammate's achievement the achievement of them all?
Sore about it? Then you should've signed Jaehyuk yourselves.
"Come on, everyone—this is just the beginning, so don't let up! Defense! Treat that score like it was paid for in blood and shut them down with everything you've got!"
The moment I came back off the scoreboard, the way everyone looked at me had changed completely. Before, it had been indifference—or something close to open mockery. Now every face brimmed with disbelief and burning curiosity.
"That's our Jaehyuk! He actually put points on the board already!"
Ryan, who'd been keeping warm wrapped in a towel, greeted me as I jogged back to the bench. Luke, my roommate, patted me twice on the shoulder as he readied himself to take the field.
"Nice play."
Luke said it plainly and moved on. I let their reactions slide and replayed the moment in my head instead.
It's definitely different.
Different how?
The level was different. Maybe that sounds rich coming from a guy who just scored an opening-drive touchdown, but the difference was unmistakable.
It was in the Gift.
The routes have gotten so much more complicated.
In high school, most of my runs had been simple—straight-line paths above all. Not anymore. Cut here, cut there. Hard stops followed by explosive bursts. Sometimes the line pulled me back a few steps, sometimes it sent me looping wide around the defense.
In every way, keeping up with the Gift was going to take a mountain of training. The Gift only showed me the road. Walking it was my job alone.
Tap-tap.
"Good work out there."
DeBoer came over to me on the bench. His face was as gruff as ever, but I could see the corners of his mouth working.
"It was nothing."
"Nothing? Heh heh."
Honey looked ready to drip off DeBoer's gaze as he studied me. Was what I'd done really that impressive? I'd just scored a touchdown like I always do.
"You know what's fascinating, though? Are there eyes on the back of your head? Or is your field of vision somehow outside the human range?"
"What do you mean?"
"The way you slipped past defenders coming in from your blind side was uncanny. Too precise to be pure instinct, surely."
"You expect me to watch every single guy and dodge him one by one? It's just a feel, Coach."
At my answer, DeBoer's face somehow stretched into an even wider grin. Watching that granite expression melt was a little funny, honestly.
"Can you do it again?"
"Of course."
"Then I'll look forward to the next offensive drive."
From his tone, he intended to ride me for this entire game. Fine by me. I'd run them into the ground all day if he wanted.
Beep—!
Our defense took the field, and a genuinely hard-fought battle unfolded from there.
So the other side is basically playing our second string, huh.
Word was that the North Carolina Tar Heels had brought their full starting entry. Our side, by contrast, was a mix—mostly second stringers with a handful of starters sprinkled in. The fact that Ryan was currently sitting there wrapped up like a burrito in a towel was proof enough. Even the quarterback we'd just had on the field was a freshman, as far as I knew.
"Punch through! BREAK THROUGH!!"
I could see the opposing coach screaming himself hoarse. For some reason, despite it being nothing more than a scrimmage, he looked like a man fighting for his life. And it seemed he wanted revenge on me in the worst way, because he kept dialing up run after run—only for the offense to stall every single time. Before long, North Carolina was forced to line up for a punt without having gained much of anything.
"Jaehyuk. Get ready."
The offensive coordinator called out to me. Returner duty? So they've decided to feed me everything, huh.
I glanced at DeBoer; he wasn't even looking my way, eyes fixed on the other sideline. Checking what he was watching, I found the North Carolina head coach, clearly steaming.
Hm. No idea what that's about. Some kind of turf war between the coaches, maybe.
"Jaehyuk—don't push it. If it's not there, just take a fair catch. It's only a scrimmage; staying healthy comes first."
I nodded at the coach's words.
"I'll go destroy them."
"No, that is literally the opposite of what I just said."
Leaving the flustered coach behind, I strapped on my helmet and headed for the field. And once again, every eye in the stadium converged on me.
In the middle of that sea of attention, I read the battlefield.
"Hoo."
A goddamn enormous field.
It looked deliciously perfect for running.
Well then. Shall I put some more points on the board?