#chapter 5!

By the time your shift ends, it’s dark outside. 

You walk home like a man half-asleep, city noise sliding past you without leaving an imprint. The apartment greets you with its familiar stillness, the kind that hums faintly, like static trapped in the walls. You switch on the hall light and stand there longer than necessary, breathing it in.

Then you sit heavily on the edge of the bed. The folded flyer presses against your ribs through your jacket and after a split hesitation, you pull it out. Smooth the creases. Read it again, slower this time.

“Charity Match – Featuring Jun Park vs Danny “Brick” Lowell” Saturday – Tonight

8:30 PM Eastside

Rec Hall Gym.

You glance at the time on your phone.

8:24.

For a long second, you hesitate. Go, or stay. Risk, or silence. But silence has never kept you alive. It clearly hasn't kept you hidden. The lights are turned off. The door is locked behind you. And before you know it–

You're standing outside the gym.

The city is different at night. Neon buzzes. Windows throw out fractured light. Somewhere down an alley, a bottle shatters, laughter too sharp, too quick. You cut through side streets, every nerve alert, shoulders tight. The Eastside Rec Hall looms ahead, a blocky brick building with paint peeling off its frame and music leaking faintly from inside. A handmade sign points toward the gym entrance.

The air changes when you step inside.

The boxing gym is a blunt instrument—leather cracking, trainers shouting, the ring ropes groaning under bodies thrown against them. It smells like chalk and old rubber, undercut with something coppery and sharp. Blood.

You move through the press of bodies, boots scraping concrete. Most people are focused on the ring, but a few faces flicker at the edges of your awareness. Too interested. Too still. Former cons, maybe. Off-duty guards. Or maybe no one at all. But you catalogue them anyway, angles and exits, in case you need them later. Then you pause. Why did that thought even occur to you? Why would you even—

Then you see him.

Jun Park.

And he looks like he’s losing.

His guard hangs too low. His arms droop, heavy at his sides. The first hook smashes into his ribs. He folds slightly, breath ripping from his lungs. The next comes higher, slamming into his jaw. His head whips sideways, spit and blood misting the air.

The crowd surges, hungry. Another strike drives him back into the ropes. Then another. Each hit lands with a sound too loud to ignore—meat on bone, sharp and final. His knees dip. His arms twitch like they might rise, but they don’t.

He looks breakable.

You feel the pain in your own bones—the hollow ache of ribs caving, the burn in your lungs, the dizzy spin after a jaw shot. Everything pressing in like a new memory you just unlocked. The thing is, this should already be over. Any sane man would be sprawled across the canvas, out cold.

But Jun doesn’t fall. He takes it. Again and again. His feet drag across the mat like dead weight, but they never leave it. His eyes stay open. Blood slips from the corner of his mouth, dark and steady. He blinks hard, shakes his head once, like he’s trying to clear water from his ears.

His gaze lifts. Just a reflexive glance—one more sweep of the crowd before the next hit lands.

And then he sees you.

His eyes—brown, sharp, assessing—widen for a fraction of a second, so fast you almost miss it. But then his posture tightens. It’s subtle, almost invisible unless you’re watching for it. His shoulders square. His guard rises without hesitation. The slack vanishes from his stance, replaced by something cleaner, more controlled, like a bad habit being snapped out of all at once.

The next punch never lands. 

Jun ducks, pivots, drives his elbow into the man’s ribs with enough force to crack bone. His opponent staggers, wide-eyed. Another strike, precise as a blade, and the brick wall buckles. Jun presses forward, relentless, surgical. It’s not brawling anymore—it’s dismantling. His fists move like he’s been holding back his whole life, waiting for this exact moment.

The crowd roared, shocked. They sound almost... disappointed? Is this not how he fights? Was he supposed to take more? Suffer and bleed? Tonight, he didn't wait. He saw you, and he moved.

Jun moves fast and efficiently— like me you think, before dismissing the thought temporarily. The fight doesn't last longer than two minutes. One last right hook to the jaw, and his opponent crumples to the mat. Jun doesn’t even look at him. 

He stands in the centre of the ring, chest heaving, eyes scanning the crowd again. For a fraction of a second, they land on you again. And in that look, you feel it—confirmation. Not coincidence. Not chance. He knows. Or at least… it looks like he does.

You melt away into the periphery before he can come for more. The noise closes over you. Your pulse hammers under your ribs but you keep it even, measured. You catalogue the shift: the dragged feet, the bleeding mouth, the sudden precision. Not proof. Evidence you can work with.

----------

Later that night, back in your apartment, the silence presses down on you harder than ever. The drawing of the serpent you found earlier sits folded on your kitchen table, a constant reminder that you’re not invisible here—not really. But you don't care about that. Not now.

You pull the laptop from your bag and start to dig. The name turns up dozens of results at first. Students. Shopkeepers. Musicians. You scroll past them, refine the search, narrow the parameters. Location. Age range. Eventually it sticks.

A local boxer.

The profile is barebones. Amateur circuit. A handful of regional matches. No interviews. No personal history worth noting. But there’s footage—years of it. Grainy recordings uploaded by spectators, shaky phone angles, poor lighting.

You watch anyway.

The pattern is impossible to miss. He takes the hits. Lets them land. Bleeds for it. Waits. Always waits. Then, at the end, he finishes it. Clean. Decisive. Like he’d been biding his time the whole match. Every report says the same thing. Same language. Same rhythm.

It’s his trademark.

You scrub back through one of the videos, pausing at a moment when he turns sideways under the lights. Sweat slicks his skin. For half a second, something dark flashes along his upper ribs—ink, maybe. A tattoo, half-hidden by motion blur and shadow.

You pause it.

The image is too soft to make out properly. Just a curve of lettering, distorted by muscle and movement. You lean closer to the screen, squinting.

It almost looks like a name.

Jun, you think absently, and let it go.

The footage jumps as the camera shifts, the moment lost. You don’t rewind again. A soft ping interrupts your concentration. The screen flickers, a line of text appears, stark, no sender:

“Jay, if you want to live, don’t trust Jun. Not yet.”

The message vanishes. No trace, no sender, nothing but quiet static in your mind. You do not panic nor shout. You don't even flinch. Instead, you note it. Someone is watching. Someone knows. You've known this for a while. But now, you know for certain. They're tracking your every move. Outside and inside. Someone is playing a game with pieces you cannot yet see.

You close the laptop. Slowly. Each movement is precise. Outside, the city hums. Inside, your past presses closer, shadows brushing your thoughts, whispering of answers, betrayals, and danger. You are not unprepared. You will wait. You will watch. You will gather the data. And when the time comes, you will move. Because you are not ready to face the truth alone—and someone knows it.