History Written in Crimson
“Aaaaah, the Bruins are being dismantled, utterly helpless!”
“Alabama's offense is nothing short of overwhelming! It's like watching the Crimson Tide of their championship glory years!!”
“And as we speak, this drive is another rushing assault! Kim Jaehyuk takes the ball and runs again!”
“He's running! Running! RUNNING! UCLA's defense, once an iron fortress, is being run over without an answer!!”
The game had, at some point, slipped into the dying minutes of the second half.
And incredibly enough—
A freshman running back here was recording his fourth touchdown of the night. In his very first game.
“TOUCHDOWN!! Another touchdown!”
“Redline Kim Jaehyuk! Blowing past defenders with overwhelming speed and performance!”
Explosive reactions from the viewers.
It was, in every sense, a game for Jaehyuk, by Jaehyuk, and of Jaehyuk alone.
“Kim Jaehyuk of Alabama is writing his name into the history books!!!”
“I have never seen a freshman make an impact like this. Now deep into the second half, Jaehyuk has already racked up 287 yards!”
And this wasn't even the end of it.
Today, at least, every other Alabama player was actively pushing Jaehyuk forward.
“BWAHAHA!! At this rate, Jaehyuk's going to sweep every player-of-the-week award there is!!”
“No doubt about it.”
“If we're doing this anyway, let's set a record. Everyone, block for Jaehyuk and nobody else!”
Perhaps it was the exhilaration of dominating a game like this for the first time in a long while.
The players were completely fired up.
And while they hadn't thought much of it at first, the prospect of carving out a place in history thanks to Jaehyuk's monster performance had them volunteering to help him without being asked.
The same mood had spread through the coaching staff as well.
The coaches were calling plays with a single question in mind: how do we get this kid into the record books?
'The game's already won, either way.'
Score: 42–3.
An utterly crushing margin.
The UCLA Bruins had been bombed into tatters, like a city flattened from the air.
One look at the opposing players said it all—their morale had been broken long ago. And since this was an Alabama home game to begin with, there seemed little chance they'd ever recover.
“Alright, alright. You're all doing great—now let's find one more gear. Let's go break Alabama's all-time record.”
“Forget just Alabama, isn't this about to be an all-time NCAA record, Coach?”
At Luke's shout, DeBoer gave a curt nod.
“That depends entirely on how you finish it out.”
And so, with everyone in an uproar—
The man of the hour himself sat on the bench, looking utterly indifferent.
But.
Beneath the calm exterior, he was struggling to keep the grin from leaking out.
'Yes. This is it.'
It was electric.
Every single moment was a thrill.
Even sitting on the bench like this.
The roar of a hundred thousand cheering fans, and his teammates running themselves ragged just to block for him.
Each and every piece of it prickled against his skin.
And then, whenever he stepped onto the field—
He was drinking in being alive with his entire body.
Tweeeeet—!
The whistle for the change of possession.
UCLA's offense couldn't even get off the ground.
The Bruins' players had been crushed by the momentum, their limbs bound hand and foot.
Thanks to which, the ball was back in Alabama's hands in no time.
“There we go!”
“Great job, defense!”
“One more touchdown, let's go! Jaehyuk!”
By now the offense was charging onto the field like it was their own personal celebration.
Jaehyuk pulled his helmet on once more and stepped back onto the field.
“WAAAAAH!!!”
“RED! LINE! RED! LINE!”
“JA! HYUK! JA! HYUK! JA! HYUK!”
At some point, the cries of Roll Tide had been drowned out by his nickname and his name, ringing louder than anything else in the stadium.
The season opener of college football.
An unknown kid from a backwater high school was,
in this very moment, writing a new chapter of history that would stun everyone.
Around the same time.
Auburn University, whose opener had wrapped up even earlier than Alabama's. Head Coach John Harper was in the locker room, encouraging his players.
“Good work out there today, everyone. A valuable win.”
The Auburn Tigers had faced the Missouri Tigers of their own SEC.
Two teams sharing the same mascot meant a fair bit of needle, but fortunately they'd scraped out a win on a last-second field goal.
“We'll do the film review and feedback tomorrow. Tonight, get some rest.”
With that brief locker room meeting wrapped up, Harper let out a long, satisfying sigh and headed for the strategy room with his coaching staff.
The players who'd just stepped off the field needed rest.
But for the coaches, the real work was only beginning.
“A mountain of things to fix.”
As Harper took his seat in the meeting room, the defensive coordinator quietly approached and held out a tablet.
“Coach, you might want to take a look at this.”
“Hmm? What is it?”
Harper asked without much thought, turning his gaze to the tablet.
The screen was filled with the scoreboards of all the college games being played that day.
Finished games, games in progress, and games about to kick off.
And of course, the one that drew the eye most of all was Auburn's greatest nemesis—the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Out of habit, Harper's eyes chased Alabama's game.
Their season opener against UCLA.
Seeing it was a non-conference matchup, Harper predicted a routine Alabama win.
'However bad things have gotten for Alabama, there's no way they lose to the UCLA Bruins.'
He wanted Alabama's downfall more than anyone.
But that didn't mean he refused to respect his enemy.
“...Hmm?”
Then a number slid into Harper's vision.
A two-digit figure against a one-digit figure.
“42:3?”
The game wasn't even over yet.
And still, a chasm of a score gap.
He'd expected Alabama to win, sure—but wasn't this a bit much?
Compared to Auburn barely sneaking past the Missouri Tigers by three points, the gulf in quality was staggering.
Granted, the UCLA Bruins belonged to the Big Ten, a conference that lagged behind the SEC in competitiveness.
But the Big Ten was no conference to sneeze at either. And last year's Bruins had been one of the fastest-rising teams in the country.
“What on earth is going on here?”
“Take a look at this, sir.”
The defensive coordinator tapped the screen a few times.
A player stats page filled the display.
[ALA] RB #21 KIM JAEHYUK (FR): 8 CAR, 287 YDS, 4 TD
“······!!”
Coach Harper doubted his own eyes.
Reflexively, he snatched the tablet away and peered at the screen in detail.
“This is impossible······.”
Had he read it wrong?
Running back? Was this a stat line a running back could even possess? In a single game?!
And the astonishment didn't stop there.
The (FR) beside Jaehyuk's name.
It meant he was a freshman.
“······.”
“What the...”
“Kim Jaehyuk? The kid who signed early with Alabama?”
“I knew he was good, but never THIS······.”
Drawn by Harper's violent reaction, the rest of the coaching staff crowded in, paling as they read Jaehyuk's numbers.
An unbelievable record.
A historic stat line, put up by a freshman on opening night, in his very first game.
Tap!
That instant.
The screen refreshed, and the numbers changed.
10 CAR, 352 YDS, 5 TD
“······.”
“······.”
“Heh... Son of a—”
Stats climbing in real time.
And the game score changed with them.
50:3.
An eight-point jump from 42 meant they'd even gone for a two-point conversion.
At this point it went beyond cruel—Alabama was toying with the opponent outright.
“...Who was it, again? The one who said we had no use for an Asian kid?”
Harper's voice was ice.
The coaching staff flinched as one.
Truth be told, every last one of them had shared the sentiment when they'd opposed it.
They'd even gone so far as to mock Alabama for pouring that much effort into recruiting an Asian running back they considered physically underdeveloped.
Which felt a little unfair to the coaches, though.
Back then, Harper himself had tacitly agreed······.
“Open your eyes and look. WHO? Which one of you said this player was all hype, that he'd never adapt to college football?!!”
“······.”
“······.”
A frigid atmosphere.
They'd just played a game, they should have been celebrating the win and mapping out the next opponent—and yet not one of the coaches dared open his mouth.
“Ralph the scout was right!! Alabama didn't invest in this kid for nothing, damn it! You blockheads!”
SLAM!
Having finally hurled his cap to the floor, Harper seethed, teeth bared, utterly unable to contain his rage.
Of all teams—it had to be Alabama.
The Auburn Tigers' eternal rival. A team they could never, ever afford to lose to.
They'd already dropped the last two meetings, back to back.
However poor Alabama's overall results, they'd somehow, grudgingly, always scraped past Auburn.
And this year, for once, he'd genuinely believed they could win the Iron Bowl—the clash between Alabama and Auburn.
Only for a monstrous player like this to land in Alabama's lap, of all places.
Thud.
“Whoof... Haaah.”
Sinking into his chair, Harper rubbed his throbbing head and looked at the tablet again.
Game clock still running.
They'd probably get one more offensive possession in.
“This is insane.”
Five touchdowns in a single game already.
That alone was an unprecedented record.
Certainly, across the whole of history, greater single-game records existed—but for a freshman to put up numbers like these in his first game ever? That had never happened.
“...Everyone, sit down. Let's just do the film review.”
Watching any longer would only churn his stomach.
And at the same time, all it would do was deepen his dread of the matchup waiting at the tail end of the season.
Alabama and Auburn played every year at season's end—on Thanksgiving, no less—which made it one of the biggest talking points in college football.
'Damn it······.'
Just yesterday, Coach Harper had been itching to face Alabama as soon as possible.
Now he found himself praying that Thanksgiving simply wouldn't come.
Tweet! Tweet! Tweeeeeeet—!
““WAAAAAH!!!””
“KYAAAAAH!”
“We won! We crushed them!”
“ROLL TIDE!! ROLL TIDE!! ROLL TIDE!!”
The moment the final whistle blew, the crowd—which it seemed not a single soul had left—erupted into screams and cheers.
And with that, Jaehyuk's family, who had watched every second of the game, sat in a daze as if wandering through a dream.
“BWAAAHAHAHA!! How long has it been since we had a win this satisfying!”
“Jae-hyuk! Wooo! Jae-hyuk! Wooo!”
Shouts and noise poured in from all around.
Half of it was about Jaehyuk.
“We're not dreaming right now, are we?”
“Huuuuh.”
The two siblings stared blankly at each other.
But the din was so overwhelming that neither could make out the other's words.
They could only catch the gist.
“What in the world is happening.”
“Our Jaehyuk, playing like an ace in his debut······.”
Even Jaehyuk's parents were dumbstruck.
Right up through high school, it had all felt like an elaborate neighborhood hobby.
Intellectually they knew he was extraordinary, but emotionally, it hadn't quite sunk in yet—call it that stage.
Granted, a few thousand fans would pack those high school games, but calling that a professional stage would have been a stretch, and they knew it.
If they lived in Texas instead of Kansas, maybe it would have felt more real.
In any case, in the eyes of Jaehyuk's parents, some of the players on the field still looked like kids—high schoolers at heart—so it had been hard to grasp just how far Jaehyuk had truly come.
But look at him now.
A crimson wave made by over a hundred thousand spectators.
Chanting their son's name in unison.
Players who wouldn't have looked out of place among professionals, cameras and professional staff scattered across every corner of the stadium.
As if the neighborhood league had abruptly been upgraded to a world stage, the sheer scale of the gap left them feeling untethered from reality.
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
“Thank you for choosing Alabama!”
“Over heeere!! Everyone, these are Jaehyuk's family!! A big round of applause please!!”
“The parents of a player who's writing history!!”
The surrounding fans who'd caught on to their identity roared the news to everyone within earshot.
And countless people turned their attention, shouting.
“WOOOAAAHH!!!”
“It's Jaehyuk's family!!”
“KIM JAE HYUK! KIM JAE HYUK! KIM JAE HYUK!”
Before long, a woman wielding a camera and microphone came shoving through the sea of people, hurrying over to the family.
“Good evening!! Sarah Taylor, reporter with ESFN SEC Network!! Might I have a moment for an interview?!!”
The stadium was so deafening that her questions were practically shouts.
As the bewildered family stood frozen, unsure what to do, Eunbi thrust her hand into the air.
“Yes!!”
“And your relationship to Jaehyuk?!!”
“I'm his little sister!!”
“Wow! What a lovely sister you are!! And Jaehyuk too—the whole family is remarkably good-looking!!”
“Thank you!!”
Watching Eunbi answer so effortlessly, the rest of the family could only stand there half-crouched and awkward.
“What a spectacular performance from Jaehyuk tonight!! FIVE touchdowns!! A record you'd struggle to find anywhere in the entire history of college football—and he did it in his DEBUT!! Has Jaehyuk always been this amazing?!!”
“Yes!! Our brother was always exceptional!! Insanely talented!! And above all, he works harder than anyone!!”
“Incredible!! So this wasn't raw talent alone—it was built on effort!!”
“That's right!! My brother's daily schedule goes something like······!!”
And so Eunbi and the reporter held court, holding forth about Jaehyuk as if they'd rehearsed it.
Meanwhile, across the finished stadium, the giant jumbotron was zooming in on Jaehyuk himself.
Gazing up at that overwhelming spectacle, Minhyuk let out a hollow laugh.
“Hah... haha. Unbelievable.”
Back when Jaehyuk first took up track, he'd just been an older brother who was really good at winning trophies.
Now he'd become a star capable of setting the entire nation buzzing.
And after a single game, no less.
“School's... gonna be chaos, isn't it.”
No, wait—was school even the problem here?
Watching Eunbi hold court for the cameras, he had a feeling this wasn't going to blow over simply.
At minimum, the family would probably be hounded by reporters for the next several days.
And among the Korean community, it was bound to become quite the topic.
“GRAAAAAHH!!”
“JAEHYUK!!! WAAAAH!!”
At that moment, the jumbotron showed Jaehyuk raising a fist to the sky. The same Jaehyuk who had never once done a touchdown celebration—the crowd was going absolutely insane for it.
And Minhyuk, accepting this reality at last, joined the roar along with everyone else.
“WOOOOOH!! THAT'S SO COOL, THAT'S MY BROTHEEERRR!!!”