𝆴 . A War of Love part 41𝆴 . :
• A War of Love ( masterlist)
All happened too fast for me to properly reflect on it. Blows succeed each others from all sides. I either dodged or used my size as an advantage. I bend down,swiftly slipping behind him and attack. At this angle, he cannot defend himself. My punch struck.
I managed to make him wince. I grit my teeth .
I failed. I rewind in my head how he bend ever so slightly when I striked. He wasn't trying to defend himself. He knew. He was everything but helpless. I let myself be misdirected so easily.
My steps slipped across the mud, damp and newly cruel, the wetness bleeding into my socks while I wondered why. When will be his next strike ? What muscle of his is about to clench ? To bend ever so slightly so it could give me a clue. And that was my problem...
Everything felt more vivid, the color o f the sky above,the fresh earthy scent of the mud that cling onto me, the hairy arms of the opponent in front of me. Despite that it felt as though the rest of the world was erased into a wave of blurr. As if I made a mistake in a painting and tried to erase them clumsily.
I had just drawn a breath when he was already moving, his fist tearing through the space I’d occupied a second too late. I twisted away, boots sliding in the dirt, and the ground split behind me with a force that rattled my teeth. I didn’t stop to look. Another strike followed immediately, then another, his blows steering me where he wanted me, driving me forward as surely as if he’d put a hand between my shoulders.
He wasn’t trying to hit me yet.
I ran, dodged, spun, my body reacting faster than my thoughts. Each step pulled heat from my muscles, each breath came shorter than the last. He stayed close enough that I felt him even when he missed, the weight of his presence pressing down on me, shaping every choice I made.
Somewhere between one near miss and the next, a memory surfaced, uninvited.
A book. Old, cracked spine, tucked away on the highest shelf of the library. I remembered reading about this exact thing, about how experienced fighters didn’t rush for the kill. They exhausted their opponent first. Forced movement. Denied recovery. Let panic and fatigue do the work long before the final blow ever landed.
I remembered thinking it sounded cruel.
Now I understood it was efficient.
The longer it went on, the heavier my limbs became. My legs started to drag. My chest burned, lungs scraping for air that never felt like enough. Sweat slid down my spine, my vision narrowing at the edges. I wanted to plant my feet, to turn and strike back, but he never gave me the space. Every attempt was cut off before it could form.
And he knew. He was waiting.
I felt the mistake the instant it happened. A step too slow. A dodge that came a breath late.
The distance vanished in a heartbeat. One moment I was moving, scrambling to stay ahead of him. The next, he was there, solid and inevitable, his fist already descending. It hit with crushing force, ripping the air from my lungs as pain detonated across my ribs. My body folded around the impact, and the ground slammed into me hard enough to knock the world sideways.
For a moment, everything rang.
hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs, pain flashing white through my ribs. For a heartbeat I stayed there, staring up at the sky as it spun slowly out of focus.
Then, somehow, I forced myself to my knees. I couldn’t stay down. I gritted my teeth and pushed, letting my arms burn as I hauled my body upright. My legs shook beneath me, quivering under the weight of the punch as well as those to come, but I planted my feet and willed myself to stand.
Sweat stung my eyes. My chest ached, lungs scraping for air. Some part of me wanted to collapse again.
I didn’t give it that luxury.
𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮… 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲.
His voice echoes as warmth spreads like poison.
I stood. Shaky, raw, but upright. I was still here. Still moving. Still breathing.Garp circled me, relentless as I've never seen him before, I met him with whatever remained in my body. I wasn’t done. Not now.
Garp struck again. Faster. Harder. The air around him snapped like it had teeth, and I twisted just in time, letting the first blow graze past my shoulder. Another hit slammed into my ribs, a shock that stole my breath for a heartbeat, but I swallowed it down, letting my body remember the rhythm. The pattern was there—chaotic, yes—but there, if I looked for it. The shift in his weight before overcommitting. The subtle angle of his arm before a strike. The twitch in his foot that betrayed the direction he wanted me to move.
I stopped trying to react to every blow. Instead, I watched. I counted. I let some strikes graze me. Sharp pain shot through me when they did, but it carried information. Where he expected me, where he misjudged me, where I could bend, twist, and step out of the way next time. I didn’t need perfection—I needed survival.
… 𝐖𝐚𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞…
Now I saw his face, twisted with some pain and what fell like a tragic joy, the one that you know will never happen again.
Mud pulled at my boots, slippery and unrelenting. The uneven ground threatened to fold me, to throw me off, but I used it instead, planting my weight just so, pivoting, redirecting his force instead of meeting it head-on.
His strikes came harder now, faster, closer, and I could only dodge half the time. The other half hit, sharp fire bursting through my ribs, my shoulder, my thigh, but I carried it forward, turned it into momentum instead of letting it drop me. My chest burned. My lungs were raw. Sweat stung my eyes. My muscles trembled. And still, I thought. I watched the way he moved, the space between his fists, the fractions of a second where I could shift or twist. I calculated angles, remembered the way he had faltered in the smallest moments, and I used it, tiny adjustments that kept me upright, kept me moving, kept me alive.
Every strike that connected became data, every slip and stumble a lesson. The rhythm of the assault shaped itself around me, forcing me to anticipate, to adapt, to react. I wasn’t unbreakable. I wasn’t fearless. But I was aware. Always aware. Each movement, each breath, each staggered dodge was a choice, and in those choices, I found power.
I stayed upright. I forced my boots into the mud again. I adjusted my stance. And I waited for the next strike, knowing it would come, knowing I would meet it, knowing that if I kept moving, if I stayed thinking, if I stayed alive, I could turn this storm into something I controlled.
And I couldn't control the feeling that slowly crept in the core of my heart.
It was time to end this fight...
__________________________________________________
I think I was about to become one with the bench.
Some bunch of arms pat my back, I remember hearing bouts of what was cackles,awe-infused words as well as some blurred congratulations. I don't know from who it came though.
The only thing that felt clear was the water bottle someone handed me. As if I had been starved for days to even centuries, I snatch it, gorging in long sip, the feeling of fresh iciness covering every pores of my throat. Some of it drizzled down my face. It left small peddles on my top. It was already soaked with sweat anyway.
I slam the bottle onto the wood. It twisted, crushed with the soft crisp of plastic.
Somehow, I wanted it to be louder. So much that it could cover tmy thoughts. After that, all that surrounded me was silence, letting space for void to surround me in a way that was much crueler than Garp's punches.
He snuck back into my mind, his innocent smile haunting me.
It was as though he was there, holding my hands tightly as if I would run away, as if to protect me from the world. Or was it from me ?
I lowered my head, curling my whole being into a tight ball.
𝓦𝓪𝔂 𝓶𝓸𝓻𝓮 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓬𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭 𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻 𝓲𝓶𝓪𝓰𝓲𝓷𝓮…
I yearn to reassure him, to comfort him, to feel his warmth yet again... And maybe... Tell him that this whole marriage bargain isn't all as bad as he thinks it is.
