The Words That Sounded Absurd

A month had slipped by since the scrimmage against North Carolina Tar Heels, and inside Alabama's football complex, something strange was taking shape.

Kane Wommack, the defensive coordinator who directed the entire defense, had spent the last several days tilting his head over it.

"Something's off..."

Tablet in hand, he paged through one detailed metric after another. And every time, one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠player's numbers leapt off the screen.

Luke Metz. Sophomore linebacker. For a few days his numbers had climbed bit by bit — and now they were shooting upward like a rocket.

There was no way to miss it. Even watching practice with his own two eyes, the change was impossible to deny.

What on earth is going on?

In the end, once practice wrapped up, Kane pulled Luke aside alone.

"You called, Coach?"

The thickness of the young man's neck told the story of serious training all by itself. These days, even the fire in his eyes burned hotter.

"Yeah, Luke. There's something I want to ask you about."

Kane went straight to the point. "You've been keeping up with training incredibly well lately. Every single metric has risen to a meaningful level. Did you change something?"

"Ah!"

Luke let out a short cry, as if something had just clicked. Then he answered, a touch carefully.

"Well... lately I've been working out and training with my roommate. In the afternoons."

"Your roommate? Let's see... huh? Kim Jaehyuk?"

When Kane cocked his head, Luke nodded. "That's right."

"Huh. Now that you mention it..."

There had been a time, once, when the recruitment of Jaehyuk had set the whole coaching staff at each other's throats.

David the scout and Coach DeBoer had insisted they land him no matter what, while the rest of the staff had been openly skeptical. And who could blame them? The kid was Asian.

His physical measurables came up short, his competition was nothing but Kansas high school ball — and he had almost never actually been tackled.

It was astonishing, sure, but flip it around and it meant his durability had never truly been tested. The coaches predicted that the moment he stepped onto a college field, he'd be flattened into the turf.

Jaehyuk's value isn't limited to the field itself!

And then, back then —

The words that had been brought out just to win the argument.

Jaehyuk has outstanding leadership and a great eye. He can coach players!

At the time, it had sounded like pure nonsense. Coaching? Who was coaching whom?

They weren't seriously going to make a fuss over a few words from a high school kid... were they?

Every staffer in that room had shared the exact same thought.

But the truly shocking part was what came out of Coach DeBoer's mouth afterward.

Jaehyuk — his ability is genuinely remarkable. The coaching ability David described, that communication skill, it will push our players to another level entirely.

By that point, everyone could tell this was no joke.

After endless meetings and persuasion, they had finally managed to bring Jaehyuk in on premium terms — and...

Hold on, I'd actually forgotten about that. So it was real?

It was hard to call it a lie when the results were this unmistakable. Of all people, Luke — Jaehyuk's own roommate ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— had suddenly started training with him recently, and every metric he had exploded upward.

"How exactly do you train together?"

"Nothing special... it's mostly skill-focused drills, plus one-on-ones every single day."

"Does Jaehyuk coach you, too?"

"Huh? How did you know that?"

The moment Luke blurted it out in surprise, Kane leaned in close, eyes gone wide as saucers.

"How? Tell me everything. In detail."

"Um, explaining it piece by piece is hard to do... he just corrects my form as we go. Critiques, I guess you'd call it?"

Form correction, was it...

Fine. There's only one way to settle this.

Kane decided he would observe the training session himself.

"Are you two doing one today as well?"

"Yes. Jaehyuk trains every day except one day on the weekend. And honestly, that rest day is forced on him — for recovery."

"Then would you mind if I watched?"

"Of course not."

After that, Kane buried himself in his workload until the appointed hour finally arrived.

Jaehyuk, recognizing the defensive coordinator, offered a casual nod and kept his session moving.

So this is it...

Kane had clawed his way to Alabama's defensive coordinator through years of relentless study and effort. And even he had never managed to produce this kind of result from a player in such a short span.

Had that actually been possible, he would have built his own team long ago.

"Get your body further forward."

Then —

Finally, the moment he'd been waiting for arrived.

"Your arm keeps drifting back and wrecking your balance. Tuck it against your ribs. Run like you mean it."

Jaehyuk wasn't just talking — he demonstrated with his own body, brow furrowed, tossing out corrections in clipped bursts. And Luke followed every word without a whisper of complaint.

"It'll feel awkward for a while, but you have to rebuild the habit first. Stay conscious of it, always."

"Mm-hmm."

Luke obeyed without a word of protest. Truthfully, at first he'd wondered what this even was — but once the improving numbers started rolling in, he had handed himself over completely.

"You already flagged that one last time, and it's still hard."

"Then stay conscious of it."

The training rolled on and on, a coach sitting at their side now, trading debate with them.

"No. At that moment you should have held a beat longer."

"Just stand pat? Or should I take another step?"

"Hmm, if you lose the timing battle there, you're in trouble."

Jaehyuk and Luke wore the same Alabama colors, but under normal circumstances they could hardly ever share a field — one belonged to the offense, the other to the defense.

Kane had assumed training together wouldn't come easy because of it. But...

His feel for the game is on another level.

Was it the way he looked at things? It was as if Jaehyuk alone could see what nobody else could.

At times the whole thing seemed laughably amateur — and at other times, his ideas were so fresh they made Kane's head spin.

In the end, Kane couldn't hold himself back any longer. He wedged himself between the two and started throwing out pointers of his own.

"Run it yourself, once! Come on — I'll be the lineman, Jaehyuk takes the running back spot, and—"

Time, as always, flowed on without a care.

Before he knew it, college life had settled around him, his adjustment complete.

High school had been good, but college training turned out to be a different kind of fun.

And once in a while, when messages came in from the people back home, he kept them updated on his life, too.

And then, at last, today arrived.

"Took long enough."

Truth be told, it was a mission he could have cleared in a single day if he'd truly set his mind to it — and he had finally, finally finished it.

Three players analyzed. Ryan Williams. Luke Metz. And finally, Marcus Thornton.

Word of the drills he'd been running with Luke had spread little by little, and one by one Horton and Marcus had joined in — though each handled their individual training separately, gathering together only in the scraps of leftover time.

So my stamina is B-grade now.

It had started at C4, but simply working out here had carried it naturally to C5. That, in turn, was what let him break through to B-grade the moment the mission cleared.

"Oh."

Not bad at all.

He'd be sitting on the bench during change of possession anyway — and now he'd recover twice as fast as everyone else in that time.

Granted, thanks to the Gift his stamina didn't drain easily to begin with. But stamina was the kind of thing where more was always better.

"At this point, nobody's touching me in the stamina department."

For pacing and injury prevention, players got rotated constantly — and no position cycled through bodies more ruthlessly than running back.

But at this level? He could run a one-man show all on his own.

Jingle-jingle—

The sound of a shop door chiming open reached his ears.

For the record: he was out in public for the first time in ages, seated in a café, waiting for someone.

"Oh my, Jaehyuk! You got here before me."

"It's been a while, noona."

"It really has. You been keeping well?"

"I'm always at my best, as you know."

Cheryl Sanders. Coach Sanders' daughter, and his personal agent.

Word had it she now ran her own agency as its president, which apparently kept her swamped.

"So? How's Alabama treating you?"

"I like it here. The fanatical intensity suits me, honestly."

Ordinarily, the people around here were perfectly ordinary folks. But the moment football came up, their eyes rolled back into their skulls.

And sometimes, like now, an Asian face drew quiet glances — this just wasn't a neighborhood where you saw many.

"Um... excuse me, but—"

That was when two women drifted up to their table. He'd felt them sneaking glances for a while now, and sure enough, here they came, working up the nerve to speak.

"Are you... Kim Jaehyuk of Alabama? The actual player?"

And just like that —

Attention snapped toward them from every corner of the café.

Oh, come on.

Even Jaehyuk, who kept his cool in almost any situation, felt cold sweat threaten to break out at how abruptly the atmosphere had flipped.

"Yes, that's him! This young man is Kim Jaehyuk, the running back who wears number 21 for Alabama!"

Cheryl answered for him with a beaming smile while he sat there stunned — and the two women erupted into cheers.

"Oh my god! OH MY GOD! It's actually Kim Jaehyuk!"

"Kyaaa! I've watched every single video of him! From his high school games all the way to the one against Tar Heels!"

The volume climbed in an instant.

Hold on a second. Tar Heels?

How had they even watched that? Wasn't that supposed to be a closed scrimmage?

"Kim Jaehyuk?"

"Our running back?"

"TIGHT RUNNING BACK JAEHYUK!!"

Before long, the entire café had broken into an uproar. People who'd been sitting quietly all rose at once and began moving toward him for a look.

"Jaehyuk! It's really him?!"

"C-could I trouble you for just one autograph?"

"I love kimchi!"

It was a small blessing that the café was tiny — barely twenty-some people in all.

Jaehyuk, half in a daze, worked his way through greeting every one of them, signing autographs, and even posing for photos.

It was his first experience of anything like this, and it felt foreign in his hands.

Back in Kansas, everyone had been a familiar neighbor, so it had never cost him a thought to oblige — which probably made it all the stranger now.

"Jaehyuk! Thank you so much for coming to Alabama!"

"Oooh, we're seriously counting down to this season!"

"We're going to make you a fight song!!"

And so, after an impromptu fan meet nobody had planned, the hour finally came and they stepped out of the café.

Cheryl studied his slightly dazed face and tilted her head. "Not used to this kind of thing, are you, Jaehyuk?"

"No."

"Really? You can barely walk a block around here without something like that happening. Especially you — being Asian, people pick you out of a crowd easily."

"I've basically never gone out. Once, for that commercial shoot? That's it."

"...Then what do you even do in your free time?"

"Training."

Cheryl's mouth opened, then closed. She let out a long breath, laid a hand on his shoulder, and turned to face him —

and there they were: bright, glittering eyes filling his field of view.

He thought it every time, but for Coach Sanders' daughter, she really was strikingly pretty.

"Jaehyuk. You're a sports star now. Not just an athlete anymore."

"Mm."

"Talking with you, I've felt it myself — you're a player genuinely chasing the very top. I'm not criticizing you for anything. I just wanted to tell you to steel your mind for it."

"Understood. I'll keep it in mind."

"You're doing well. Honestly, plenty of players get to college, slam into the wall of everyone else's talent, and spiral into wasting themselves. Compared to that, you're exceptional."

Before long he found himself loaded into the car Cheryl had brought around. The moment he settled into the passenger seat, she fired the engine and pulled out.

"It feels a little ridiculous for me to be the one saying this, but... every once in a while, engage with your fans. Not constantly — once a week? And if that feels like too much, once every two weeks?"

"I'll think about it."

"Your SNS has gone completely quiet lately, too. Your sisters were managing it for you, weren't they?"

"We live apart now, so I guess there's nothing to post."

"How about uploading a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠training photo now and then? Or a shot after you finish a workout? For a sports star, image-making matters."

"All right."

Fair enough. I've climbed this high — I should carry the weight that comes with it.

Some people would say an athlete's only job is to perform. He understood that too — he was still a teenager, after all, and he knew exactly what era he lived in.

This was the age of self-promotion. Sometimes a player's value shone brighter through mic work and popularity than through raw skill alone.

He intended to win on skill and nothing else. But he wouldn't go so far as to deny the phenomenon itself.

One photo a week. That's nothing.

He'd have to film a training clip or two and send them to his younger ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠siblings. And Luke was into SNS these days anyway — he'd have to rope him into helping.

"We're here!"

And so, in the middle of their idle chatter and his own quiet thinking —

They had arrived.

Today was, at long last, the day the reward promised at that camp a full year ago finally became real.

The development of brand merchandise under his own name — something like that.

He wasn't the only one coming, either. Word was that a handful of other athletes and celebrities would be there as well...

The NFL.

Would they have come from there, too?

It did make him a little curious.