A Return Touchdown That Answers Every Expectation
A return touchdown that lived up to what everyone had been waiting for.
The Tennessee players could only stare at Jaehyuk's touchdown with hollow, dumbfounded expressions.
It was a performance that snuffed out the stubborn, grinding momentum Tennessee had been clinging to — in a single stroke.
“WHOOOOOAAAAH!!!!”
A roar like rolling thunder. The stadium, packed with a hundred thousand spectators, was dyed in searing heat.
And Jaehyuk, the man at the center of that roar, was — as always — calmly tossing the ball to the official and heading back toward the bench.
“I honestly don't know what we just witnessed out there...”
“One of the greatest return touchdowns in the history of college football! This is a highlight that will be replayed and talked about for years to come!!”
The play-by-play announcer was dumbstruck; the color commentator was beside himself. The broadcast booth was in an uproar — and the cameras chasing Jaehyuk were even more frantic, so nothing more needed to be said.
“Even just the catch had me flinching for a second. The tackler closing in with the ball was absolutely vicious.”
“Exactly. It looked like a guaranteed, unavoidable tackle. Their defense had venom in its eyes and threw everything it had at Jaehyuk.”
“But he shrugged it off like it was nothing. Incredible balance and instincts!”
The score stood at 32:15.
A gap that even two touchdowns could no longer erase. Of course, football had always been a game where nobody could say how things would turn out. Interceptions cropped up constantly, fumbles came out of nowhere — it was a sport where anything could flip in an instant.
But.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEEP—!
Final score: 42:18.
Feeling the overwhelming gulf in power firsthand, the Tennessee Volunteers sank just like that.
“WHOOOAAAAH!!!”
“Roll Redline! Roll Tide!!”
“We won! We won! Haha! Serves you right, Tennessee!!”
“This Third Saturday in October belongs to us!!”
Victory confirmed, the stands dissolved into a crucible of frenzy. Even after the game had ended, a hundred-thousand-strong crimson wave kept churning, refusing to leave.
With this, the Crimson Tide hadn't merely beaten a hundred-year rival — they had extended their record to a flawless 6-and-0.
And there was no question who stood at the center of it all: Jaehyuk.
Step. Step.
Coach Josh walked over to greet the Alabama side. DeBoer, who until only last year had looked so precarious that people whispered about his dismissal, now stood like a grizzled general who had weathered every storm.
Firm grip.
The two men shook hands. Neither said a word; a single exchange of glances was all the parting they needed.
Josh then made his rounds to the other coaches, sharing a handshake with each, before his eyes found Jaehyuk.
Trudge. Trudge.
Jaehyuk, still trading rough greetings with the players, noticed Josh approaching and gave a small nod.
“Good game. Must've been rough going up against me.”
At that supremely arrogant greeting, Josh finally let out a hollow laugh. So this was a player every bit as insolent as he was talented. But he'd more than earned the right to be — and somehow, that made the attitude almost charming.
“Why Alabama, anyway? With that kind of talent, you could have gone to a better program.”
The air around them froze in an instant.
At Josh's words — words that sounded like a slap at Alabama itself — the Tide players bristled with barely contained menace.
But Jaehyuk, the man in question, brushed it off without so much as a blink.
“A better program? I think you've got something mixed up, Coach. There's no such thing as a better team than mine.”
“Excuse me?”
What's that supposed to mean?
To the bewildered Josh, Jaehyuk flashed a wide, easy grin.
“In this world, there are only two kinds of teams. The team I'm on — and the team I'm not on. Unfortunately for you, Tennessee falls into the second category.”
“Hah... hahaha...”
Everyone stared at him, faces caught somewhere between outrage and disbelief. But then again — only Jaehyuk could have made a line like that fit so perfectly.
“Pfft—”
“Damn it, fine! Take everything, you bastard!”
“And what's a bottom-feeder like me supposed to do with my life, huh?”
“WAHAHAHA! Love it! Jaehyuk! Let's ride your coattails all the way to a championship!”
Before anyone noticed, the Alabama players had started cheering him on. Watching them go, the Tennessee side could only trudge away with bitter, sour faces.
“Is this not absolutely insane?”
In the corner of some small room, a man with a livestream running on his screen was shouting, practically vibrating with excitement.
“Jaehyuk Kim is MVP again this game. Does that even make sense? I can't believe it. A Korean MVP in college football — and a running back for the Alabama Crimson Tide, no less!”
The man was none other than the YouTuber who'd recently made the viral video about Jaehyuk — the Sports Trivia Dictionary.
He had always produced highlight videos across all kinds of sports, but his Jaehyuk video had shot his name recognition to new heights. Thanks to it, his subscriber count had leapt from a modest thirty thousand to eighty thousand overnight, and the video itself was already sitting at 2.2 million views.
He'd watched football now and then to begin with, and as luck would have it, tn Sports had aired its Jaehyuk Kim special right around the time he'd discovered the player and started working on his video. The timing was perfect, and he'd ridden the wave.
Since then — no longer because of the video, but because he'd become a genuine, wholehearted fan — he'd taken to watching every college football broadcast he could, cheering Jaehyuk on live.
“Forget everything else — the man had three touchdowns. And all three were so devastating they completely crushed Tennessee's momentum. Honestly, Jaehyuk Kim did it all by himself.”
“Our Jaehyuk is Korean, yes. If you're curious about anything else, go watch the Jaehyuk special that aired on tn Sports — it's up on their YouTube channel. There are interviews with his family, and with his old school too.”
Somehow, the Sports Trivia Dictionary had become Jaehyuk Kim's unofficial spokesperson — better known by his nickname, Sjab.
He then went through the incoming chat one message at a time, answering the curiosity of everyone wondering about Jaehyuk.
“So Jaehyuk's making the playoffs, right? I'm going to every single game in person.”
“I'll post an announcement and film the whole thing. Though the trip might be rough on you.”
“Whoa, now I'm the one who should be begging you to get me tickets? Anyway, from here on out I'm doing live commentary for every single remaining game of Jaehyuk's. And the moment we make the playoffs, I'm flying straight to America.”
“Alright then, I'll sign off here. See you all next week!”
After ending the stream, Sjab soon found himself rewatching his own recording of Jaehyuk's game.
“Ohhh, that's the stuff.”
Nope, this won't do. I need a beer for this.
So he cracked one open from the fridge, tilted his head back, and gulped it down while Jaehyuk's highlights rolled across the screen.
“Ahhh! Now that's happiness!”
I should make one more highlight video of Jaehyuk. This time, I'll pull together every college game so far — with the local broadcast reactions layered in.
Six games played so far. That alone is already more than enough for one video, right?
The regular season had just hit its halfway mark. With the other half still to come, cutting a Part One highlight reel now was perfect timing.
Then I'll build Part Two from the rest of the season, and the playoffs get their own video.
Sjab was already treating Jaehyuk's playoff berth as a done deal.
“Let's see here, let's see... Hmm?”
Before starting on the edit, he checked his inbox first. Apparently because his recent video had blown up, quite a few emails had piled up.
And then one of them caught his eye.
The subject line read: 'We're Jaehyuk Kim's younger siblings.'
“Ohhh!”
He opened it immediately — and sure enough, it really was from Jaehyuk's younger siblings.
The message was simple. They were the ones managing Jaehyuk's social media, they explained, and they wanted to ask whether it would be okay to post his videos on his accounts.
“Of course it is!”
Huh. So Jaehyuk doesn't even run his own socials? He just leaves the public-facing stuff to his siblings?
Having fired off a reply, Sjab sat back down with a spring in his mood and began editing Jaehyuk's regular-season highlight reel.
“GodDAAmn it. Help me get to America, Jaehyuk! I'm rooting for you!!”
While his name recognition was steadily climbing back in Korea, Jaehyuk was sweetly collecting his reward for the win.
Reward: Durability and Stamina increase
Durability: C5 → B1
Stamina: B2 → B3
Maybe it was because it had been a rivalry game. Where beating the Texas Longhorns had raised his Speed by a single point, this time a full two stats had climbed.
And with that, Durability had finally reached B grade. His C-rank durability ability had been upgraded.
Durability B Grade achieved. Impact sustained during games is now reduced by 45%.
It had jumped a full fifteen percent, from thirty.
It might not sound like much, but in a game of football where the tiniest fraction of a mistake could mean injury, it was an enormous ability.
So it dampens nearly half of the impact now.
Did that mean getting hit by a car doing sixty kilometers an hour would now feel roughly like being hit by one going forty?
Roughly speaking, that was the idea — though the weight of the vehicle would change things too. Either way, it was no exaggeration to say Jaehyuk's body was now made of steel.
Better still, it wasn't just the ability — the intrinsic toughness of his body had risen along with the stat itself. He'd be hard-pressed to get hurt under normal circumstances.
“We are! Crimson! CRIMSON!”
“Roll Tide! Roll Tide!”
While Jaehyuk was busy savoring his reward, the locker room had become an absolute madhouse.
They had utterly demolished Tennessee — their hundred-year rival, the very team that had beaten them last year — so their high spirits were more than understandable.
“Hey, hey — did you see it? They walked all the way back out carrying that flag they brought to plant on our logo.”
“Looks like over ten thousand Tennessee fans made the trip too. Tough luck for them. Hahaha.”
Over ten thousand fans, for an away game, huh.
Feeling his sense of numbers warp a little, Jaehyuk busied himself stripping off his gear.
“Jaehyuk! Today was YOUR day! Am I right or what?”
“Our MVP, right here, everybody!”
“Good work out there, ace.”
The players, who'd been laughing and shouting all this while, turned their attention to Jaehyuk. Just as he was starting to feel the fatigue creep in, help arrived.
“Alright, eyes up.”
Having gathered everyone's gaze, DeBoer looked each player in the eye, one by one.
“You all played brilliantly today. The regular season is now more than halfway through, and we are still — undefeated.”
“WOOOO!”
“YEAHAAAH!!”
“HAAH!”
The players erupted at his words. DeBoer let them have their moment, then raised a hand and quieted the room.
“Now — like I said, that's only half the season. We take care of the other half, and we're in the playoffs.”
“We're going, no matter what!!”
“LET'S GO!”
“Next week we face the Mississippi State Bulldogs. They're calling them the SEC's weakest link, but we don't take anyone lightly. Keep your heads on straight. Tonight's for fun if you want it — but from tomorrow, it's business as usual.”
“YESSIR!!”
“We'll review today's game tomorrow morning. Dismissed.”
“WHOOOO!”
Ecstatic, the players began peeling off their gear and changing out of their uniforms — over a hundred of them, filling the room with a churning, chaotic buzz.
A few of them didn't even bother changing, bolting straight out the door to go meet friends and family. And in the middle of all that bedlam, someone was looking for Jaehyuk.
“Jaehyuk — got a minute?”
“Yeah. What's up?”
It was Trevor, Alabama's captain — and the senior players.
What's this? A group lynching?
He'd never actually said it out loud, but Jaehyuk's adjustment period at Alabama had been brutal. His signature infuriating personality had carried him through, along with the help of a few players he'd grown close to and the proof he'd delivered on the field — but the hazing he'd endured back then had been genuinely harsh.
“Season's more than halfway gone now, so before it's all over, we figured we ought to make some memories with you.”
“Come next year, we're basically done anyway. So let's grab lunch together sometime, freshman.”
Done.
That one word carried two meanings.
Enter the NFL draft — or close the book on life as a player right there.
Of course, even the ones who quit playing could still work in football in some capacity. But who, in their heart of hearts, ever wants to hang it up?
Either way, at the strange weight in those words, Jaehyuk nodded.
“Yeah. Let's do it.”