Groggy

‘It’s over.’

Gi-seol thought.

‘This time, it’s really over.

It’s completely over….’

Surrounded by explosive cheers, Gi-seol’s mind moved sluggishly.

As far as he could guess through his daze, something was wrong with his cochlea—or maybe the cochlear membrane.

Whatever that “cochlear thing” was.

Otherwise, the cries of his name, the curse-laced shouts, and the applause fierce enough to tear palms apart could not possibly feel as though they were only circling outside his skin.

Every pore in his body burned and stung as if it were boiling.

Beyond that, Gi-seol could not properly feel anything.

Even the noise filling the hot arena sounded distant, like insects crawling beyond a thick wall.

His pupils were dilated black as he trembled.

Blood ran from his ear, crushed like mashed potatoes, down his neck and pooled above his collarbone.

A puddle of blood formed in the hollow of his deeply carved collarbone.

It felt as though dipping a finger into it would make a splash.

Gi-seol drew in a large, ragged breath, then exhaled.

The blood filling his nostrils sprayed into the air like it had been released from a spray can.

Under lights bright enough to burn his corneas, he snorted harshly a few times before blinking belatedly.

His vision, blurred by excitement, slowly came into focus.

The first thing he saw was a half-naked man collapsed on the ring.

The fighter had stretched his arms and legs in every direction, forming a large X with his body.

A referee repeatedly patted his motionless shoulder with a white-gloved hand.

The championship belt displayed like a trophy at one side of the arena gleamed in Gi-seol’s eyes.

Then he saw the audience outside the ring.

Watching the furious, excited crowd shouting toward him, Gi-seol smiled.

They looked like baby birds with their deep, black mouths wide open.

Baby birds opening and closing their beaks, demanding to be fed insects…

But he only smiled at the pointless thought for a moment.

Men wearing expressions twisted with rage entered his view.

Dressed in black suits like grim reapers, they were quickly approaching him.

Gi-seol’s limbs had always moved faster than his brain.

Before he could understand the situation, he began to run.

Avoiding the men in black, he first charged into the audience.

He clumsily pushed through the crowd shouting at him, reaching out with their arms, and splashing him with lukewarm beer and saliva-mixed water.

Leaving thick sweat and droplets of blood behind him like bread crumbs, he looked back.

Beyond the crowd roaring, “Waaah, waaah,” the men in black did not bother chasing him themselves.

Their hostile eyes remained fixed on Gi-seol.

Their lips moved around the phone held to their mouth.

‘Catch him.’

They mouthed the words twice.

“Huff…”

Leaving behind a terrified breath, Gi-seol escaped the sweltering arena.

There was no time to stop by the locker room and change.

Wearing only his boxing trunks, he thundered down the emergency stairs, then suddenly changed direction.

He could hear footsteps coming down from above.

But he could also hear footsteps climbing up from below.

Cornered, Gi-seol seized on the emergency stairwell’s small square window as a desperate solution.

A paper cup packed with cigarette butts sat on the dust-covered frame.

Without hesitation, he pushed the window upward and shoved his right arm, shoulder, and head outside.

Feeling adrenaline surge through him, he kicked off the inner wall with both feet and forced his left shoulder out with all his strength.

The square window was far too small for a fully grown man to pass through.

Naturally, his muscular forearm swelled against the frame and became tightly stuck.

But Gi-seol was flexible.

And desperate.

He let out a long breath as though emptying his lungs completely, then threw his entire body forward.

At last, his shoulder, flushed red from friction, slipped through the frame.

Pulling out his comparatively lean lower body was much easier.

The moment he made it through the second-floor window, Gi-seol dropped straight into the parking lot flower bed.

“Huff, huff…”

The impact of falling from roughly three meters sent his body rolling hard across the ground.

Curled into a ball, he grabbed his tingling groin once with his left hand.

Under his loose trunks, he felt the protective gear firmly covering his center.

Pain throbbed in his left shoulder, but it did not seem broken or dislocated.

His forearm, however, had been scraped raw against the window frame.

Blood soon gathered, turning the pale scrape into a red wound.

“Whew.”

His exhale, released through rounded lips, seemed to carry the scent of adrenaline.

Then every shock of the day crashed into his mind.

The arena’s white lights still seemed to flash before his eyes.

His heart pounded as though it were racing down stairs.

His limbs had not forgotten the impact of the fall.

Still, Gi-seol had to get up.

A man in black appeared at the second-floor window he had just escaped through.

Looking down at the flower bed full of crushed, dry branches, he shouted something with an enraged expression.

“That crazy bastard…”

After the brief curse, he pulled his head back inside.

He did not seem willing to attempt the small window in the building wall.

The black-suited men shouted to one another through the wall.

“That f*cking bastard!”

“Catch him and kill him!”

Gi-seol moved as quickly as a flying squirrel.

For a few steps, he almost crawled on all fours before straightening and running.

He wore nothing but boxing trunks and possessed nothing but nerve.

To open the door of his worn-out car, he had to smash the corner of the driver’s-side window.

Sitting in the driver’s seat covered in glass shards, the first thing he searched for was the multipurpose jackknife in the glove compartment.

Among the folded knife blade, saw blade, bottle opener, and other tools, Gi-seol opened the small flat file meant for trimming nails.

He shoved it into the keyhole, twisted it from bottom to top and left to right, then turned it.

The old car started.

There was not the slightest hesitation in his movements.

He was used to doing things like that.

More than used to it—he was good at it.

Born and raised in the back alleys, stealing was the only thing Gi-seol knew how to do.

A life clinging to the back streets of a crime-ridden city was, quite literally, improvised.

The ring had been his attempt to live at least a little less like trash.

Only then did Gi-seol realize he had lost the gloves on his hands.

He felt regret for a moment, then laughed emptily.

He had climbed into the ring to escape his miserable life.

But today, he had escaped from the ring once again.

Only after driving his rattling car out of the parking lot did Gi-seol wipe away the blood around his ear.

When he shook his head roughly, a drop of unwiped nosebleed fell onto his navy-blue trunks.

His body trembled again.

It was always like this after a match.

Blood that had been hot enough to cook his heart would suddenly go cold.

Then a bone-deep chill would hit him without warning.

Today, the trembling was especially severe.

Unable to bear the lonely cold, Gi-seol reached toward the passenger seat.

He grabbed the sweat-smelling hooded jacket lying alone on the seat and clumsily pushed his arms through the sleeves.

‘All because of money….’

At that moment, he was grateful that traffic lights used such obvious colors.

Even through vision blurred by tears, he could recognize a blue circle.

As he turned the steering wheel and pressed the accelerator toward home, four words floated through Gi-seol’s mind.

Twenty million won.

It was the amount in the bank account handed to him by his coach, who had suddenly found him after two years.

A two followed by seven zeroes.

The coach had suggested match-fixing, saying Gi-seol could no longer make a comeback as a fighter and that his glory days were already over.

The condition was simple.

Drag the comeback match out until the fourth round to drive up the betting amount, then lose.

If he did that, the bank password and the twenty million won inside would belong to Gi-seol.

“Hmph.”

Gi-seol snorted.

The stale cigarette smell from his coach, whose complexion had grown even redder since they last met, still seemed to linger in his nostrils.

‘It’s a good chance to save retirement money.’

Gi-seol had been easily persuaded by his coach’s words.

There was no need to think about it.

It was true.

He might have been called a boxer, but Gi-seol was just one of countless mediocre amateur fighters.

His corporate team, Geumgang, was far from a proper management agency.

It was closer to a gang organization that sent fighters into illegal betting tournaments held every quarter.

Most corporate teams in the city of Sinsan operated the same way.

Even if Gi-seol had performed brilliantly in his comeback match and won five consecutive fights, he would never have saved twenty million won.

At only twenty-two, he was already standing at the edge of his career as a fighter.

His condition had deteriorated compared to before, but that was not the real problem.

The more fundamental issue was how earnings were divided.

As a fighter, Gi-seol received only twenty percent of the betting money placed on him.

Even that had to be divided with the corporate team, and he had to give a portion to his manager as well.

Some fighters still managed to make a fortune despite everyone being in the same shitty position.

They were the ones selected as the designated winners in rigged matches, like today.

‘“Designated winner”? What bullshit.’

Gi-seol ground his teeth.

‘It’s all because of that bastard.

That f*cking bastard….’

A thick blue vein formed a Y-shape across the back of his hand gripping the steering wheel.

With his eyes wide open, Gi-seol pressed the accelerator.

He had no time to sit around crying with wet eyes.

Breathing heavily, he remembered the face of the opponent he had been supposed to lose to.

That bastard who had climbed into the ring wearing a shameless face and a nasty smile.

Gi-seol had only learned his name today.

‘No… no.

This is all because of me.’

He laughed like a madman for a long time, then twisted his face into a deep frown.

Gi-seol slapped his own left cheek hard.

A stinging pain spread across the side of his face.

With one cheek red and swollen, he parked carelessly along the curb in front of his rundown villa.

The narrow road was easily blocked by his junk car alone.

The moment he got out, he climbed the metal stairs attached to the side of the old building in long strides.

He needed to pack.

In the tiny home, made up of one room and a space too small to properly call a living room, Gi-seol had only one thing to take.

“Gyeong!”

Calling out loudly, Gi-seol first grabbed an old carrier with a mesh opening.

In the living room thick with hot air, a fan faced the floor and rattled as it blew a weak breeze.

Gi-seol looked beneath the cluttered sofa, over the wrinkled bedsheets, and at the food bowl left carelessly on the floor.

A handful of dark brown kibble remained inside.

“Gyeong.

Gyeong?

Come here, quickly.”

Holding the carrier open, Gi-seol lay flat on the floor.

After searching the ground in every direction, he suddenly stood and began checking high places.

Only then did he spot the cat sitting inside a box on top of the dust-covered bookshelf.

“Come here!”

When Gi-seol reached out, the startled cat quickly darted away.

Gi-seol panted as he tried to catch the old cat, Gyeong, who raced through the house in every direction.

The day had already been long enough.

The cat he loved dearly did not need to make things harder for him too.

Gi-seol felt suffocated by frustration and injustice.

“Ah, Gyeong.

Gyeong, please!”

Even though he knew shouting would not help, Gi-seol could not stop himself from snapping.

The price of taking out his suppressed temper on the innocent cat was harsh.

Perhaps Gyeong thought he was being taken to the animal hospital.

The frightened cat ran farther away, more desperately than before.

Reaching beneath the desk, over the bed, and behind the curtains with both arms, Gi-seol felt close to tears.

“f*ck, f*ck…

Come here already, Gyeong.

We have to leave now!”

Unable to control the dark anxiety flooding in, Gi-seol finally collapsed where he stood.

Lying face-down on the floor like a man in despair, he repeatedly slammed his fist against the ground.

Only after abusing the floor until his wrist went numb did he finally come to his senses.

When he pressed his lips together and raised his head, beads of sweat rolled down his sharp jaw and fell to the floor.

The ends of his dark, straight eyebrows drooped sadly.

“I’m sorry for swearing…”

With a wet voice, Gi-seol found Gyeong, whose tail was puffed up.

The old cat was hiding beneath a dining chair, dark gray fur sticking out in every direction.

Its weak legs were stretched out.

Its angry breathing came in sharp huffs.

Gyeong’s green eyes gleamed as it glared at Gi-seol.

“I’m not angry because of you.

I’m sorry, Gyeong…

I’m sorry for losing my temper.”

Muttering pleas under his breath, Gi-seol crawled toward the cat.

“I’m not taking you to the hospital.

Please come out.

Please, just look at me once…

We really have to leave quickly.

Please… okay?

Come here.”

Gyeong silently watched Gi-seol lying flat on the floor and begging.

Soon, the angry cat’s puffed-up tail slowly settled.

After seeming to think for a moment, Gyeong let out its distinct, hoarse cry.

“Meow.”

“Yes, yes…”

When Gi-seol reached out, Gyeong slowly walked toward him.

Then the cat rubbed its fluffy head against the back of his hand, where a red scrape remained.

Looking down at the old cat, whose head was smaller than his fist, Gi-seol smiled brightly for the first time that day.

He scratched the fragile cat’s head twice, then carefully gathered it into his arms.

The villa door swung open with a loud clang at that exact moment.