The Crimson Cup Erupts
Located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, there stood a pub called The Crimson Cup.
It was a place with a long, storied history. Any true Alabama football fan knew it well—so well that they'd gather here to shoot the breeze even on weekdays in the dead of the offseason.
"Ahh, those were the good old days."
"When was our last conference title again?"
"2021. Seven years ago now, believe it or not."
"I don't even dream about a national championship anymore. I'd settle for us just not embarrassing ourselves in the conference."
"We lost the Iron Bowl last season, too. Absolute rock bottom..."
Today, as always, a crowd of worn-out regulars had gathered to wash away the day's fatigue, drinking beer while football highlights played across the big screen. For the most part, though, they sat slumped and glum, either reminiscing about past glory or cursing under their breath as they chewed over the team's recent results.
Jingle-jingle—
Just then, a group of people walked through the door. Regulars of the pub—and the very men who had sneaked in to watch this afternoon's scrimmage.
"Well, hey there, Joseph. Good to see you."
"And Mr. Gilbert from the sporting goods store is here too!"
The existing patrons greeted the newcomers warmly. But for some reason, the expressions on the faces of the group that had just walked in were anything but ordinary.
"What's going on? Why the long faces?"
"Take a look at this. I caught something absolutely unbelievable on camera."
"What is it? Come on, show us!"
Gilbert thrust his phone forward with the smug pride of a general presenting spoils of war. One by one, the men nearby began to lean in and crane their necks.
"Why don't we put it up on the big screen instead?"
"Something like this, we all gotta see it together!"
After a brief negotiation with the pub's owner, the phone's screen was cast onto the massive display. Fumbling through the connection took a little effort, but the regulars simply stood there in a daze, watching the excited group fumble with the setup.
"There it goes!"
It took roughly ten minutes. The moment the long-suffering screen finally connected, the whole group let out a triumphant cheer, and the pub's patrons turned their eyes to the field now displayed before them.
"Where is this?"
"You shot this yourself?"
"Huh? Wait—that's Alabama's outdoor practice field, isn't it?"
"But it's a game? They're in full uniforms."
The crowd immediately began demanding answers from the group, but Gilbert cut them off with a single firm statement.
"Watch first. Questions after."
Just watch the video?
Fine, okay. The chatter died down, and everyone fixed their eyes on the screen, drawn in completely.
The footage showed a game between a sky-blue team and a crimson team. The crimson side, naturally, was the Alabama Crimson Tide. And the sky-blue side was...
"Is that the North Carolina Tar Heels?"
True football fanatics—they deduced the opponent at a glance.
"The Tar Heels came all the way here for a road game?"
"When was this shot? Don't tell me—today?!"
"If it's the Tar Heels, we shouldn't have any trouble with them. The ACC's gone soft."
"Looking at the jersey numbers, we mostly played our second string. Barely any starters out there?"
"Oh! The drive's over. Looks like they're lining up to punt."
Perhaps it was because this was piping-hot, brand-new Alabama game footage they'd never seen before—the crowd sank deep into the screen, utterly absorbed.
"They're making a substitution?"
"A returner. Who is that? Number 21? Anyone know him?"
"21? Isn't that Dre?"
"He's a defensive back, man. No way a DB's returning punks..."
"Ahh! I've got it, I've got it! It's the new freshman! Right? Am I right?"
"Which means this really is a game that happened recently?"
The group who had watched the scrimmage in person merely smiled to themselves as they eavesdropped on the unfolding speculation, calmly waiting for the shock that was about to come.
"A return in a scrimmage? Really?"
"Hmm, they usually don't risk it. Injury concerns and all."
"Guess they've decided to toughen the rookie up."
"Speaking of which! That guy, right there. The freshman who demanded a starting job just to join our team! Let's see exactly how good he thinks he is, walking into an Alabama starting lineup like he owns it!!"
Punt—!
At that very moment, the ball sailed through the air. Dozens of eyes tracked its flight across the screen.
"Oh, oh..."
"He's actually going to return it?!"
And there, waiting at the ball's landing point, stood number 21. For some reason, his frame looked smaller than the other players'—so slight that it seemed one solid hit might shatter him.
"He'd better not overdo it..."
With someone's worried murmur hanging in the air—
Catch!
He secured the ball. But it looked perilously close. Jaehyuk seemed to teeter on the edge of losing his balance, and the crowd's palms went slick with sweat.
"Oof."
"I thought he was gonna drop it!"
As they watched with bated breath, the sky-blue uniforms of the Tar Heels came charging into view, bearing down on him.
"Ghh."
"I can't watch."
Some squeezed their eyes shut at the collision that was about to unfold. And yet—
"Motherf—"
"HOLY MOLY!!"
On the screen, number 21 slipped past the defenders lunging at him with almost insulting ease. As if they were nothing at all, he glided around them and set off on an unhurried run—then suddenly exploded, bursting down the field at a pace that was dynamic, violent, breathtaking.
VROOOM!!
A red uniform dancing between the sky-blue. It looked for all the world like a brush loaded with crimson paint sweeping across a canvas.
"......"
"......"
The pub had gone speechless. Moments later, they watched number 21 accept his teammates' escorts and stroll calmly into the end zone.
"Wh-whoa!"
"What in the world is that."
"That's the freshman? That impossible performance came from a kid who was in high school literally the day before yesterday?!"
Only then did the crowd begin to wake from their trance, one by one. The heat in the room climbed higher and higher until, at last, everyone was roaring.
"That kid is completely insane!!"
"And THAT is who just joined our team?!"
"BWAAAAHAHA!! Barkeep! Another round of beer over here!"
"Play it again! No wait—loop it! LOOP IT!!"
It had been a single play. Sure, luck might have been on his side. But one thing was beyond doubt: everyone in that pub could feel, through a run of nearly ninety yards, that the raw fundamentals themselves were exceptional. The sheer sense of speed radiating off the screen was overwhelming.
"So I'm actually allowed to have expectations this season?"
"He still needs more proving, but this much? Passing grade."
"Please! I won't ask for anything else—just a conference title! No, screw it, a championship too if we can manage it!!"
Vitality surged back into the deflated pub. Before anyone knew it, Jaehyuk's video was playing again, and the patrons toasted one another, cheering at every replay.
"Roll! Tide!"
"ROLL TIDE!!"
Go ahead and get your hopes up.
Three starters from last season are gone, and get this—the new freshman running back is a STARTER lmaoooo
Mockery poured down from every corner of the community boards. Luke bit his lip, started typing a reply, then stopped himself.
"You bastards."
But the truth was undeniable—Alabama, as it stood, was in bad shape. The one consolation was that the team's aces were still around. The year before last, their defensive anchor Caleb had transferred away, and the defense had wobbled badly ever since.
Yeah, three starters left. But a hole this size, Alabama's depth can cover it.
And thanks to those departures, an opportunity had opened up for him. Of all the starters to leave, it had been a linebacker—and Luke was a linebacker too. Of course, plenty of formidable players were still gunning for the job. Nineteen athletes on the roster at the position alone. He had to seize his chance here and claim a starting spot.
"Must be nice."
His roommate Jaehyuk, by contrast, had been guaranteed a starting job the moment he set foot on campus. Honestly, Luke had been baffled at first—a player he'd never even heard of suddenly waltzing into Alabama's starting lineup. He'd figured he knew every high school prospect worth knowing. What? Kansas? Two-time straight MVP there?
Frankly, Luke had thought it was a joke. If he'd known this was how it worked, he should've just gone and grabbed an MVP in some no-competition backwater himself.
But the kid was the real deal.
The recent scrimmage. Sure, it was against the North Carolina Tar Heels, a conference considered relatively weak—but still a D1 program, fielding nothing but starter-caliber players. And against them, in his very first game, Jaehyuk had casually racked up two touchdowns. Even more staggering, both had come from a single drive. Two carries, two touchdowns. An average of eighty-three yards per carry.
That was not luck.
Once might have been fortune. But twice? A sliver of luck, and mostly skill. There was no other way to read it. Luke was no slouch himself—he'd earned his place at Alabama, after all. His eye for talent was good enough to judge exactly what he was seeing.
"Haah."
How did an Asian kid just get born with talent like that? He was green with envy.
Creak!
Just then the door swung open, and Jaehyuk emerged, already dressed for another workout.
"Practice ended and you're heading out to train again?"
Jaehyuk just nodded at Luke's question. "Training and working out are two different things. What're you doing?"
"Me? Wasting my life."
"Cut the crap and get ready. You're coming too."
"Huh?"
When Luke stared at him in disbelief, Jaehyuk planted his hands on his hips as if to say, what are you looking at?
"Get ready and come out. I can't stand this dead-in-the-water mood."
"I mean, come on..."
"Training, working out, whatever—let's just do it together. You planning to waste your life, coast through college all numb, and call it done?"
Strange. The brashness of it rubbed him the wrong way for a second, but it grated on him far less than he expected. Probably because he'd just watched the show the guy had put on. If anything, it lit a strange fire under him—a twisted kind of motivation.
"I'll be ready in a sec."
"You've got five minutes. Hustle."
In under three minutes, Luke was ready, and the two of them headed down together. Jaehyuk was finally planning to tackle the missions the Gift had assigned him. Until now, he'd focused on adapting, making use of Alabama's lavish facilities. But he'd grown comfortable enough—it was time to clear the backlog.
By the time they arrived at the gym, which had long since started to feel more natural than the dorms, a few other players were already there, squeezing in a workout before dinner.
"Start with some light weights?"
"Sure."
The two began lifting, spotting each other in turn. And the more they trained, the more Luke couldn't help being astonished by the strength packed into this scrawny Asian kid.
Holy crap, he's WEAK...!!
Oh, he was stronger than your average person, obviously. But that went without saying, didn't it? D1 universities were the final gateway straight into the NFL—a league called a den of monsters. This place had current NFL-caliber talent mixed right in; it was a monster den in its own right. Train in a place like that, and your baseline for comparison was never going to be ordinary people.
"Now I get why you're so obsessed with the weight room."
Luke finally couldn't hold it in. Jaehyuk acknowledged it without a hint of embarrassment.
"Yep. It's one of my weaknesses."
"One? So you've got more?"
"Why would I tell you that?"
Luke scratched his head awkwardly, and soon his own turn came. He lowered himself onto the bench, eyeing the bar.
Hmm. I wonder if Jaehyuk can even spot the weight I'm throwing up here.
An hour or so of lifting later, the two stepped into the indoor training facility. Luke already felt wrung out by the weights, but watching Jaehyuk grit through his training despite it, he forced himself to buckle down.
"Want to keep it simple with some tackle-avoidance drills?"
"Okay. I'll go easy on you."
It was different from the usual one-on-ones—this was the exact duel Jaehyuk had run with Coach Sanders the first time they'd ever met. But it was just practice, so a little restraint, a little gentleness and—
Whoosh!
"!!"
Luke's eyes went wide as Jaehyuk blew past him in a blink. Wait—where did the guy who'd been groaning under the weights five minutes ago go, and who was this monster?!
Can't let my guard down for a second.
Having experienced it firsthand, he finally understood why the Tar Heels defenders had crumpled like wheat before a scythe that day.
Whish!
Swish!
Tack!
The tackle drills kept coming, relentless. A few times Luke's hand grazed him, but he still couldn't bring him down. If he put his full strength into it, he could probably manage it—but that meant real injury risk.
"Phew."
Still, come on. Heat began pricking at Luke's skin. No matter how brilliant Jaehyuk was, Luke was an Alabama player too. A bruised ego was only natural.
Let me slow down and just study him.
He'd been too hung up on making the tackle. This time, even if he lost him, he'd focus on watching.
Ta-ta-tak!
Jaehyuk broke into his run again. Luke, waiting in his path, took quick little steps this time, tracking every twitch of the kid's movement.
Tak!
A flashy fake. But he'd committed to observing, so he held his ground.
Swat!
Jaehyuk finally picked a direction and moved. It could be another fake, though. Watch it to the end. There had to be a flaw somewhere—
WHOOSH—!
"Hrk."
But the moment Luke decided it might be a fake, Jaehyuk—as if he'd predicted the thought a half-second early—simply accelerated straight through and exploded past him.
"Hah, hah... hah."
Truly something else. No wonder they handed him a starting job the day he arrived.
Then, this time, instead of preparing to run, Jaehyuk came walking right toward Luke.
"Hmm."
"What's up?"
"Nothing. I just figured something out."
"Figured out?"
Figured out what, exactly? Jaehyuk mulled it over for a moment, then spoke.
"You. Let's fix your stance a little."