Chapter Text
The smell of the locker room was a familiar poison for Nicholas.
It was a thick, humid cocktail of liniment, old leather, and the sour edge of nervous sweat that no amount of industrial bleach could ever truly scrub away.
Nicholas sat on the edge of the wooden bench, and his head hung low. His blonde hair, fried from too much bleach and not enough care, fell in spiky streaks over his eyes. He felt every bit as wrecked as he looked. The weight cut had been brutal this time—a week of ice baths and counting the drops of water that hit his tongue—but the physical hollowness was nothing compared to the static in his brain.
"Steady," the trainer, Yudai, muttered. His skin looked like cured leather, and he did not use a soft touch as he yanked Nicholas's left hand forward.
Nicholas did not respond. He just watched his own hands. They were trembling, just a fraction, as Miller started the wrap.
Thwack. Stretch. Wrap.
The sound was rhythmic, almost hypnotic. Nicholas focused on the sensation of the gauze tightening around his knuckles and turning his hands into weapons. It was the only time that he felt he was becoming whole—when his identity was stripped down to the tape and the bone.
"You're staring at the wall again, Nico," Yudai grunted, the smell of peppermint gum and old tobacco wafting over him. He snapped the cloth taut with a sharp tug. "I don't like that look. You look like you're waiting for a bus, not a title defense."
Nicholas closed his eyes, ignoring him. He was trying to find the dead zone he usually inhabited before a fight. Normally, it was a cold, quiet basement in the back of his mind where nothing reached him. But tonight, the basement was flooded.
He kept thinking about the old gym, not this arena with its high-definition screens and pyrotechnics, but the one with the flickering fluorescent lights and the ring that groaned every time he stepped onto the canvas. He thought about the sound of two people breathing in perfect sync—the slip, the slide, and the way a sparring partner becomes the only other person in the world who truly knows the shape of his soul.
He remembered the feeling of a jaw hitting his shoulder in a clinch. The heat of a body he knew better than his own, and then, he remembered the way that heat had turned to ice.
"Nicholas Wang. Look at me."
Nicholas snapped his eyes open. Yudai was holding his face, thumbs pressing into his cheekbones.
"You're not here," the older man hissed. "Whatever is rattling around in that head of yours, kill it. You go out there with a cluttered mind, and you're leaving on a stretcher. You hear me?"
Nicholas flexed his jaw, the movement sharp and jagged against Yudai's grip. "I hear you."
"I hope so," Yudai said, releasing him. "This guy tonight is a brawler. He's looking to take your head off because he thinks you've been soft. Don't be bored tonight, boredom gets you a broken nose."
"I'm not bored," Nicholas rasped. He stood up, grabbing his leather jacket from the hook. It was heavy, the studs on the shoulders catching the dim light. He did not feel like a champion—he felt like a man walking toward a ledge, wondering if the fall would finally be enough to make this noise stop.
The walkout to the match area was a sensory assault.
The bass from the speakers was so loud that it felt like it was trying to rearrange his internal organs. Nicholas kept his chin tucked, his blonde fringe acting as a curtain between him and the thousands of people who wanted a piece of him.
Left, right. Breathe, don't think.
He climbed the steps to the ring, the bright overhead lights hitting him like a physical blow. He ducked through the ropes, the familiar grit of the canvas under his feet finally grounding him. He paced his corner like a caged animal while the referee checked his gloves and smeared a cold layer of Vaseline over his cheekbones.
"Keep it clean, protect yourself at all times," the referee droned.
Nicholas nodded, but his eyes were already wandering. It was a compulsion now, a sickness. He started at the back of the arena and swept forward, his gaze skipping over the flashing lights and the waving signs.
And then, the world stopped spinning.
Right there, in the front row.
Byun Euijoo did not look like he belonged in a place this loud. He looked like a masterpiece hanging in a gallery of thumb-sketches. His hair was a deep, saturated red that seemed to glow under the stadium lights, making his skin look like polished marble.
Nicholas's breath hitched. He felt his guard drop, his hands going limp at his sides.
Euijoo was leaning forward slightly, his elbows on his knees, his chin resting on his interlaced fingers. He looked calm and bored—looked like he had never spent a single night crying over a broken friendship or a ruined career.
"Nico! Hands up!" Yudai screamed from the corner, sensing the shift.
Nicholas did not hear him. He was locked into Euijoo's gaze. For a second, just one, Euijoo's eyes flickered—a tiny, microscopic widening that told Nicholas he had been recognized. But it was gone as fast as it appeared, replaced by that same, icy curiosity.
Euijoo unclasped his hands and reached into his dark jacket, pulling out a silver lighter and a pack of cigarettes. He did not look away as he tapped one out, his movement slow and deliberate, as if he were mocking the frantic, blood-hungry energy of the arena.
Nicholas felt a phantom ache in his chest that had nothing to do with the weight cut. Eujoo had not smoked back then.
He had been the one to scold Nicholas for even standing too close to the exhaust of the gym's old heater, obsessed with the lung capacity and clean air for clean hits. Seeing that silver lighter spark—seeing the small, orange cherry glow at the tip of the cigarette—was like watching a stranger wear his friend's skin.
The version of Euijoo that Nicholas carried in his head was officially dead.
The referee looked at Nicholas, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Are you ready, Fighter?"
Nicholas did not move—he could not. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a bird in a cage, the rhythm erratic and painful. He felt the cold sweat on his back turn to ice.
"I'm ready," Nicholas whispered, though the words did not leave his throat.
The bell rang—a sharp, piercing clang that usually signaled the start of his dominance.
Nicholas stepped forward, but his feet felt like they were sinking into wet sand. His eyes were still glued to the red hair in the front row, tracking the way Euijoo exhaled a slow, gray plume of smoke. Euijoo looked like he was watching a documentary he had already seen the ending to—waiting for the crash.
It came faster than Nicholas expected.
Thwack.
A sharp jab caught Nicholas square on the nose. His head snapped back, the world blooming into a starburst of white and red. He had not seen the opponent's shoulder dip; he had not even seen the glove.
"Hands up, Nico! Wake the hell up!" Yudai's voice screamed from the corner, raw and desperate.
Nicholas stumbled back, his boots dragging on the canvas. The metallic taste of blood, immediate and hot, filled his mouth. He wiped his nose with the back of his thumb, staining the white tape of his glove with a messy crimson.
His opponent, a heavy-set brawler named Reo, saw the opening. He moved in like a shark, sensing the champion's lapse.
A hook to the ribs.
A straight right that grazed Nicholas's temple.
Nicholas was defending by instinct alone, his guard sloppy and high, leaving his midsection wide open.
Crack.
Another body shot sent a jolt of agony through Nicholas's side. He gasped, the air leaving his lungs in a wheeze. He backed into the ropes; the elastic tension of the cables was the only thing keeping him upright.
Through the blur of his watering eyes, he looked down.
Euijoo had not moved an inch. He had not flinched when Nicholas got hit. He just sat there, the cigarette held between his index and middle finger, his expression one of mild, measured disappointment. It was the look he used to give Nicholas when he missed a footwork drill in the old gym.
You're better than this, Nico. The memory of Euijoo's voice, soft and encouraging, clashed violently with the man who was currently watching him bleed for entertainment.
Something in Nicholas's chest snapped. It was not the dead zone he usually fought in—it was something hotter and uglier; a spike of pure, unadulterated resentment. He was not fighting Reo anymore. He was fighting the years of silence, the way Euijoo was looking at him like he was already a loser.
Reo lunged in for what he thought was the finishing blow—a massive overhand right.
Nicholas did not slip it, and he did not duck. He stepped into the pocket, his own shoulder taking the brunt of the impact, and fired a short, vicious uppercut.
The sound of his glove clashing with Reo's chin was like a gunshot.
Reo's head snapped up, his eyes rolling back for a split second as he staggered. Nicholas did not stop, as he pushed forward, his blonde hair wild and damp, and his face smeared with his own blood. He was a mess of teeth and jagged aggression, throwing punches that had no grace and only weight in them.
He pinned Reo against the opposite ropes, unleashing a barrage of hooks that were far too heavy for a standard opening round. He was red-lining, just like Yudai warned, but he did not care.
Every time his glove hit bone, he looked past Reo's shoulder. He wanted Euijoo to see the wreck. He wanted Euijoo to see exactly what he had turned Nicholas into.
The referee jumped in, forcing a break, but Nicholas had to be physically hauled back by his shoulders. He was breathing in ragged, shallow gulps, and his chest was heaving.
He turned his head toward the front row.
Euijoo took another drag of his cigarette, his eyes finally narrowing. For the first time in the night, the cold curiosity was gone, and replaced by a dark, flickering tension.
He was finally watching.
The bell rang, cutting through the roar of the crowd like a serrated blade. Nicholas did not walk back to his corner; he staggered, his boots feeling like they were cast in lead, dragging across the blood-speckled canvas.
Yudai was already over the ropes before Nicholas's gloves touched the velvet. He shoved the wooden stool behind Nicholas's knees and forced him down with a heavy hand on his shoulder.
"Sit. Sit down, damn it," Yudai spat, leaning in close. He slammed a cold, dripping sponge against the back of Nicholas's neck. The shock of the ice-water sent a violent shiver down Nicholas's spine, but it did not clear the fog. It just made the edges of the arena blur into a smear of hazy gold and black.
"What the hell are you doing out there, Nico? Talk to me!" Yudai hissed. He was frantic, his fingers digging into Nicholas's jaw as he used a rough towel to swipe the gore from under Nicholas's nose. "You're fighting like a goddamn amateur. You're reaching, your chin is up in the air—you're leaving your ribs wide open every time you look at the floor. He's gonna find your liver in the next thirty seconds if you don't wake up!"
Nicholas did not respond. He could not.
His throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper. He just stared at the towel in Yudai's hand—white cotton quickly becoming mottled with dark, ugly streaks of his own blood.
The texture of the fabric, rough and biting against his skin, tripped a wire in his brain. The screaming fans, the bright lights, and Yudai's frantic coaching suddenly bled away, replaced by the low, steady hum of a single, flickering fluorescent light.
═════════════════════
Three years ago.
The old gym did not have a VIP section. It barely had a working shower, and the air always smelled like damp concrete and cheap floor wax.
"Keep your chin down, Nico. You're giving it away. Every time you're about to throw the left, your shoulder dips."
Euijoo's voice was soft, a calm anchor in the middle of their chaos. He was not wearing a tailored jacket back then. He was in the ring, his dark hair damp with sweat and clinging to his forehead in messy clumps. He wore a gray hoodie with the sleeves hacked off at the shoulder, and his hands were wrapped in frayed, blue gauze that had seen better days.
They were not sparring to hurt each other; instead, they were like dancing to a rhythm that only both of them could hear.
Nicholas had lunged—a playful, half-hearted jab that Euijoo slipped with a grace that should not have been possible for someone his size. Before Nicholas could reset, Euijoo had closed the gap, his chest thumping against Nicholas's, his arms wrapping around his waist in a grounding glitch.
"You're overthinking again," Euijoo had whispered, his breath warm against the crook of Nicholas's neck.
The heat of him was everywhere. He smelled like laundry detergent and iron—a scent that, for Nicholas, meant home. Nicholas had let his guard drop, leaning his forehead against Euijoo's shoulder for a second too long. In the muddle of that ring, surrounded by the sound of skipping ropes and heavy bags hitting the walls, his heart rate actually slowed down.
"I'm not overthinking," Nicholas muttered into the gray fabric of the hoodie. "I'm just watching you. It's kinda hard to focus when you move like that."
Euijoo laughed, the sound low and vibrant. He pulled back just enough to look Nicholas in the eye, a small, knowing smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He reached up, his thumb unwrapped and surprisingly soft—brushing a smudge of gym grime off Nicholas's cheekbone.
"Well, stop watching and start hitting," Euijoo teased. "If you don't take the title this year, I'm gonna have to take it from you myself, and you know how much I hate losing, Nico."
"I'd let you win, actually," Nicholas said. The words slipped out, honest and heavy. He would have given Euijoo the world if he had asked for it.
Euijoo's expression softened then, a real, wide smile breaking across his face. "Don't you dare. If we ever fight for real, Nico… Please give me everything you've got. No holding back, and no being careful. Promise me?"
Nicholas had looked at the blue wraps on Euijoo's wrists, his fingers tangling with the frayed edges. "Promise."
═════════════════════
Present Day.
"Nico! Suck it up and spit! Come on!"
The memory shattered like glass. Yudai's voice barked him back into the sweltering heat of the arena. Nicholas leaned over and spat a thick, metallic glob into the bucket, his lungs burning.
The soft hair was gone.
The smile was gone.
Nicholas looked across the ring, then dropped his gaze past the ropes to the man sitting in the front row. The red hair was so bright that it looked like an open wound. Euijoo was not leaning in to whisper secrets anymore. He was slumped back in his chair, his expression unreadable as he watched a slow, gray plume of smoke curl toward the ceiling.
The promise to give him everything had been the very thing that destroyed them. Nicholas had kept that promise during their final, disastrous fight—he had poured every ounce of his hidden resentment, his suffocating jealousy, and his pride into his fists. He had given Euijoo everything, and it had been enough to drive him out of the gym and out of Nicholas's life forever.
"The round is starting. Get your head in the game!" Yudai warned, shoving the rubber mouthpiece back between Nicholas's teeth. "Go out there and kill him, Nico, or he's gonna make an example out of you."
Nicholas bit down on the rubber, his eyes stinging. He did not want to kill the man across the ring—Reo was just a body in the way. He wanted to jump the ropes, grab Euijoo by that expensive jacket, and demand to know why he was smoking, why he had turned his hair into a warning sign, and why he was looking at Nicholas like they had never shared a heartbeat in the dark.
The bell rang for Round 2.
Nicholas stood up, his vision narrowing until the only thing in the world was the man with the red hair and the cigarette, waiting to see if Nicholas would finally break.
The bell for the second round did not sound like a start; it sounded like a threat.
Nicholas did not wait for Reo to come to him. He met him in the center of the ring, but the fluid grace from the flashback was entirely gone. He was fighting with a frantic, jagged rhythm that had Yudai swearing under his breath from the corner. It was not boxing—it was an exorcism.
Reo threw a heavy hook, aiming for the ribs that Nicholas had left wide open in the first, but Nicholas did not even bother to slip it. He just braced himself and took the hit. The air punched out of his lungs in a sharp, gluttural grunt, but he used the momentum to pivot, digging his heels into the canvas to land a devastating overhand right of his own.
Crack.
Reo's head snapped back, sweat spraying off his skin like rain, and Nicholas did not let up. He leaned into the pocket, his shoulder grinding into Reo's chest, his blonde hair damp and sticking to his forehead in messy clumps. He was a wreck of raw nerves and adrenaline, throwing punches that were too wide and far too hard—the kind of desperate hits that broke hands and ended careers.
Every time his glove clashed with Reo's face, Nicholas's eyes flickered down to the front row.
Look at me, he thought, the words a silent, jagged scream behind his mouthpiece. Look at what you left behind. Look at what's left of me.
Euijoo had finally dropped the bored act. The cigarette was still caught between his fingers, but he was not leaning back anymore. He was perched on the very edge of his seat, the smoke curling around his face like a shroud. His dark eyes were fixed on the way Nicholas was completely neglecting his defense—the way he was throwing his entire weight into every strike with a total, terrifying disregard for his own safety.
Euijoo's jaw was tight, his teeth visibly gritted. For the first time that night, Nicholas saw a flicker of that old, familiar tension in the line of Euijoo's shoulders—the look he used to get right before he would step in and tell Nicholas to stop being a martyr. It was the only thing that felt real in the whole arena.
Nicholas drove Reo back into the ropes, his vision blurring with a mix of sweat and the blood still leaking from his nose. He unleashed a barrage of body shots, his knuckles aching through the tape, his breath coming in sharp, whistling stabs. He was red-lining, his heart rate spiking into a dangerous, frantic one, but he felt a sick sense of triumph.
He was finally making Euijoo react. He was finally making him feel something.
Reo, desperate and reeling from the pressure, threw a wild, jagged elbow as they broke from a clinch. It was not clean, and it was not legal, but it caught Nicholas perfectly just above his left eye.
The world went red, immediately.
The skin split—a deep, rough gash that sent a curtain of thick, warm blood pouring down over Nicholas's eyelid, blinding him on one side. He stumbled back, his hands coming up instinctively to wipe at his eyes, his guard falling completely away.
"Nico! Get out of there! Clinch him!" Yudai screamed, his voice lost in the sudden, blood-hungry roar of the crowd.
Reo saw the kill. He stepped in, his boots squeaking on the canvas, his fist cocked back for a massive, fight-ending straight.
Nicholas blinked through the red haze, is breath coming in ragged, broken hitches. For a split second, he did not even look at Reo. He did not even care about the punch; instead, he looked at Euijoo.
Euijoo had stood up.
The cigarette fell from his fingers, hitting the floor unheeded. His hand was gripped white-knuckle tight on the metal barricade, his body leaning so far over the edge that it looked like he was about to vault into the ring himself. The icy, untouchable persona had shattered into a thousand pieces. In its place was a raw, frantic alarm that Nicholas had not seen in three years.
In that moment of shared, high-stakes panic, the enemies tag felt like a pathetic lie. They were not strangers, and they were not rivals. They were just two people trapped in a room that had grown too small for their history.
Nicholas saw Reo's glove coming. He knew he could not dodge it—he did not even try. He just braced for the impact, his eyes locked on Euijoo's face, wanting the red-haired ghost to be the last thing he saw before the lights went out.
The punch landed with the sickening, wet thud—the unmistakable sound of leather meeting bone at high velocity.
Nicholas did not even feel his knees buckle. The world did not fade; it simply disconnected, like a wire being pulled from a socket. The roar of the thousands of people, the scorching heat of the stadium lights, and the metallic, copper sting of the blood in his mouth vanished into a sudden, jarring vacuum. As his body went limp, gravity took over and dragged him down toward the canvas that he had spent his entire life trying to conquer.
But just as the darkness rushed in to swallow him whole, a sound tore through the silence.
It was not the referee's count. It was not Yudai screaming from the corner. It was a voice that belonged to a different life—a voice that was supposed to be a ghost, a haunting melody that he only heard when he was too tired to keep his guard up.
"NICHOLAS!"
The scream was raw, cracking at the edges with a desperation that bypassed the lungs and came straight from the gut. It was loud enough to pierce through the thick, adrenaline-soaked air of the arena. This was not the voice of the man in the front row—the one in the expensive jacket with the cold, bored eyes. This was the soul-shattering sound of a boy who used to hold him in a clinch after a hard round, whispering that they were going to be the only two people left standing when the world finally ended.
Nicholas's head hit the canvas with a hollow thump, the impact jarring his skull and sending a fresh spike of white light through his brain, but the name—the way Euijoo had screamed it—stayed looped on a desperate, broken circuit.
Through a tiny, flickering slit of his remaining vision, he saw a blur of red hair. Euijoo was not sitting anymore. He was halfway over the metal barricade, his hands outstretched as if he could reach across the gap, defy the laws of physics, and catch Nicholas before he hit the floor. For one fleeting heartbeat, the measured, untouchable mask was gone. In its place was the terrified face of a man who realized, perhaps too late, that he was watching the only thing that actually mattered to him break into pieces.
Then, the referee's massive frame stepped into his line of sight, cutting the connection.
"One!" the official barked, his arm swinging down in a sharp, rhythmic arc. "Two!"
Nicholas tried to move his fingers. He tried to tell his lungs to pull in air, but his body was a foreign country now, refusing to take orders from a king who had lost his crown. The only thing he could still feel was the vibration of his name echoing in his chest, louder than the referee's count, louder than the frantic blood rushing in his ears.
"Three! Four!"
The darkness finally won. Nicholas's eyes drifted shut, the image of Euijoo's panicked expression burned into the back of his eyelids like a brand.
He did not hear the rest of the count. He did not see the referee wave his arms to signal the end of the match. He drifted away into the heavy silence; the ghost of Euijoo's voice was the only thing that kept him from disappearing entirely.
The champion was down, and for the first time in three years, the world was finally quiet.
═════════════════════