I laid in my bed reading over the letter from the Tournament of Gods.
Mr. Kirin Monroe
We have been watching your fighting technique for quite some time, and have decided that you are ready to take part in the Tournament of Gods.
Your round trip to Busan will be covered by the ToG committee. All fees and costs would be paid in full.
Group stage begins on the twentieth of December, and would end on the thirty first of December. Knockout rounds would begin on the second of January.
We wish you the best of luck.
Daewoo Song
Director of the ToG committee
I read over it again and again and again and again, so many times that my head hurt, so many times that I recognised every single word of the letter. But I still can't find a contact number or email. There is no way of contact whatsoever.
Until I noticed the notches in the paper.
I fell off the top bunk and scrambled to my desk.
Wainqg.cg
My landline rang. I ignored it.
I slid my chair over to my laptop on the bunk beneath me and entered the website wainqg.cg into the search bar, a message popped up in the corner of my screen.
I know you're there Kirin, pick up the phone.
The webpage showed up.
I let out a loud cheer.
'Shut Up!' Alfie shouted from the room beside me.
I browsed around the website, it looked pretty professional, there was an address on the bottom of the website.
Now that I got the address, all that I need to do is persuade Alfie to let me go to Busan. This is gonna be great fun.
Alfie is my older brother, and is usually the person who I go to when I need to go somewhere, because I know asking Mum and Dad is a waste of time, he's the best person to go to, and that's not saying a lot either. Alfie pretty much shoots me down before I even get a chance it issue my request. Alfie looks like me in many ways, just a bit (ok, a lot) taller than me, and has green instead of brown eyes, other than that we're pretty much identical.
I knocked on the door to Alfie's room.
'come in.'
Alfie's room was it's usual mess, there was clothes on the floor, paper plates on his desk, socks on his TV and bottles of fizzy drinks all over his room. Oh and there's also a pile of pizza boxes in a corner.
'Al, can I ask ya something.'
Alfie tore his eyes away from his TV screen. 'Yeah, go ahead.'
'So you know how I have been doing Karate for quite some time now...'
'Yeah?'
'And you know how I'm like...super good at it...'
'Look Kira. (Alfie has been calling me Kira ever since the day I came out of my mother's womb. I really hate the name, but hey, if he's the person that you ask for permission to go somewhere or do something, it's better not to complain.) cut the crap, what do you want.'
Yeah, he's used to me being like that when asking for requests. 'So there's a tournament on, and I was picked, they want me to go to South Korea to take part. I have to have a note signed by a parent or guardian to consent to me taking part. So can I go?'
'Why not.' Alfie tore a sticky note from his stack and began to write.
'Oh, I thought you would...wait, say that again?'
'I said why not?'
I jumped with happiness, 'Oh thank you Alfie! Thank you!' I went up to give him a hug but he dodged away. He stuck the sticky note to my arm.
'Now get out of my room before I change my mind.'
I ran out of the room and closed his door softy behind my back.
I looked at the note on my arm. A good round trip ticket to Busan.
If I have to be honest here, I never ran so fast in my life, I grabbed my trainers from my room, threw my schoolbooks on the floor and put everything else I might need in my bag, underwear, clothes, a towel, a charger and my Switch Lite, my laptop and most importantly, my Letter of Admittance from the ToG committee. I jumped down our flight of stairs and grabbed my house keys.
'Kirin dear, where are you going?' My Mum's voice came from the sitting room.
'Just over to Julian's for a bit. Then I might be going to Sou...to Ethan's for a sleepover.'
'Oh, ok dear. Have fun.'
If I'm lucky, my Mum wouldn't realise I wont be home for the next two to three months. If I'm not then I hope Alfie would vouch for me, if he doesn't then I might have to take my chances with Dad again. But hopefully I won't have to resort to that. Dad would have my back, because he's the one who got me into Karate in the first place, but I don't want them to argue over me again, especially after last time.
My Mum is a bit off her rocker. She's been like that ever since Dad came back with his legs gone from Afghanistan. at first Dad, Alfie and I tried to cope with and help her, but after two years Dad just couldn't stand it anymore, and left my Mum. That was all six years ago, when I was eight and when Alfie himself was just around fourteen. Alfie stays at home to help Mum while his girlfriend goes out to work to help sustain the family. And I'm pretty sure my two younger step-sisters are Alfie's girlfriend's Dad's daughters. So then there's that.
In many ways I'm as jealous of Alfie as I am of Ethan. Alfie goes by the old saying my Dad used to love annoying us with. "Work hard, play hard". He would completely work his ass off one day, and then stay in his room another day. Although he isn't consistent, he does his job well. Often nearly fainting from exhaustion some days. Me on the other hand, I can't even take care of Kate and Saoirse properly, and I'm useless to the point that Alfie sometimes complains that Big Cousin Sinead and Big Cousin Laura are more useful than me, and I tend to agree.
It's sometimes hard living in my shoes, for Mum, I'm just a hazy living memory. All she remembers about me is my name and face. That's all. But it's also partially my fault for letting that happen. I always took advantage of her, whether it was going outside to play, going to my friend's house or just going to a different country, like right now.
I felt a twang of guilt.
I ran in to the sitting room and found Mum playing with Saoirse and Kate. I leant over and kissed her cheek. 'I'll be back soon, I promise.'
As I left the house I shouted up to Alfie. 'Make sure to water my plant once every two days!' Then closed the door.
I ran as quickly as I can down to Julian's house, Julian and Ethan were already packed up and waiting for me.
I punched Ethan. 'Nice of you to wait for me.'
Ethan laughed. 'Nah man, we wanted to leave without you, it's just that Mr. DeMilo wanted us to wait for you.'
I kicked him one more time and stood facing Leonardo DeMilo. 'Sorry for the wait, some family issues.'
Leonardo DeMilo smiled and plucked the sticky note from my arm. 'No problem. Now, are you boys ready?'
Ethan and I both said 'Ready!' simultaneously, Julian patted his pocket before saying 'I think I'm ready.'
'Good. Here we go...'
Then the world cued to darkness.
*
I stirred in the back seat of a limousine with my head knocking off Julian's. I was the first to wake up out of all of us, Ethan somehow fell on the ground. (Or they just dumped him there, I'm not sure if I said this to you or not, but Ethan is heavy )
Leonardo smiled at me from the front seat of the Limo, next to the driver. 'ah Kirin my boy. You're finally awake. We nearly reached our destination, but until then, lay back, and relax.'
As soon as 'relax' came from his mouth, a table slowly extended from the left hand side of me. I wasn't sure what to do, since, as you probably would have figured by now, I don't usually have these luxuries. Hell, we don't even have a car. If we have to buy anything it's usually at our local newsagent or corner shop, I have never even set foot outside of Ireland. The furthest I went from Fermanagh was up to Derry to visit Big Cousin Sinead and Laura, and we don't even do that anymore, because the last bus from Locklee to Derry (an ancient metal monster. The seats reek of spilt drinks, coke, coffee, tea, smoothies, and the floor is pretty much wet 24/7, it's a two and a half hour drive up to Derry, God help my soul.) stopped going through our town of one thousand five hundred, two years ago.
I lifted one of the beautifully carved wine glasses and sipped from it, before spitting it out into the glass again.
'I'm fourteen, I can't drink!'
'Whoops. I'm pretty sure that was for me, sorry about that.' Leonardo "apologised".
I decided to peel back the curtains and look outside instead. I nearly choked on my spit.
For people who lived in big cities all their lives, Busan was probably nothing, it doesn't even compare to the sizes of some of the other bigger cities in the world, like San Francisco, New York, London, Tokyo and so on so forth. But like I said, I have never left Ireland in my life, I have barely even left Fermanagh at all, and the scenery in Fermanagh is, grass, trees. Oh and the occasional house. Busan was hhhhhhhuuuuuuuuugggggggggeeeeeeee. There were TVs on the skyscrapers, a million and one neon lights, shops all around us, streets bustling with people, a shopping centre directly across from another shopping centre that was beside another shopping centre. Phone shops everywhere you turn, usually if you want to buy a new (or new-ish) phone, you'd go to Raj and his tech shop, if you want games he'll order them for you with a middle-man fee. but here in Busan, you can stroll anywhere and there would be a tech shop. Anywhere and everywhere. And the girls, the girls!
I already know most of the girls in Locklee, since in a town that small everyone knows everyone, there's only about a few hundred girls in the Locklee area, and most of them are under the age of ten. The people in my secondary school come from the surrounding areas, but even then there's still only two hundred or so girls in every year. Kinda sucks I know. I made a mental note to get myself a girlfriend before I return to Fermanagh. Or I'll have to wait for who knows how long.
We pulled into an, get this, underground carpark, underground! I've rarely even been to a normal car park. (yes, I do in fact live under a rock. Come at me.) And Julian and Ethan started waking up.
Leonardo opened the door for us as we walked down a red carpet filled with paparazzi, the chattering crowd quickly fell silent.
'So young...'
'No way, has DeMilo lost his mind?'
'Shush, Daewoo Jin was eleven when he first...'
'Yeah but he didn't even make it past the groups, did he?'
'Maybe they're VIP guests, like the sons of some rich businessman or something?'
Leonardo just smiled at the paparazzi as he ushered us down the carpet and into the main hall.
If I have to be honest with you, I felt out of place. Everyone was dressed richly, then there was me, in my school uniform, with my hair sticking out in about one million different angles.
Everyone looked at me.
'Hi.'
Julian looked more excited than anyone else here, most of the guests were enjoying the food and drink, Ethan was his usual self, flattering a cluster of female competitors. Julian grabbed my by the wrist. 'Leave Julian to the girls, I see a few famous faces! Lemme introduce you to them.' Then he lead me off into the sea of humans.
'You see him?' Julian asked while pointing to a rather tall man. 'Bobby Lionheart. Three times Olympic Judo champion, although he specialises in Judo, his Taekwondo is also world class.'
'Oh, oh!' Julian pointed at another teenager. 'Daewoo Jin, one of the youngest ninth-degree black belt in Taekwondo. An escapee from North Korea at age six, it is said that he killed and severely wounded several guards before swimming sixteen hours straight into the coastline of South Korea. He got awarded with ninth-degree black belt when he was eleven, and took part in the Tournament of Gods a month later, but he got knocked out in the group stages. This is his sixth time taking part in the tournament, and he won his past four.'
I accidentally bumped into a woman. 'I'm sorry!'
The woman patted my head and smiled sweetly. 'No worries dear.' And walked off, I walked back to Julian and he was fuming. 'What's wrong?'
'McKenzie Taylor! That's what's wrong! You do Karate right? You should know her!'
I looked at him. 'You alright mate?'
'Jesus Christ! You are clueless, you know that? She represented Canada in the Male Karate World Championships, and would've easily won if something urgent didn't happen in her family on the grand finals, not just any Karateka should know her, everyone who is in the Martial Arts business should know her!'
I looked over the heads of many, many well dressed fighters, and saw Leonardo's head looking for us, I raised a hand and he hurried over. 'Quickly, follow me, have you guys seen Ethan? you know what never mind, just come with me!'
A bald Korean man walked onto the central stage and silence immediately followed.
'Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Welcome to the one hundred and thirty first Tournament of Gods! I am the chairman, Daewoo Song. And would like to welcome newcomers, and old comers alike warmly. As some of you returning fighters might know, at the opening ceremony, we bring out the ten most promising fighters to stage, the criteria for these fighter must be, one! Nominated by a member of the Board Committee, not just a scout! Two! Have caught the eye of at least six Board Members, and finally! Three! Be a complete newcomer to the event!'
The crowd cheered.
'If the following fighters can come to the stage please!'
'Fu QiYi!'
An Asian boy walked up the side stairs onto the stage.
'Misaki Subaru!'
Another boy joined Fu QiYi on the stage.
'Jeanne "Jean D'Arc" Lorelle!'
'Chungsoon park!'
'Alder Steinsman!'
'Ciara Becker!'
'Dongwi Kim!'
'Ryan Taylor!'
As more and more people joined the stage, I gradually started to lose interest, but Leonardo DeMilo kept on tapping my shoulder. 'Watch this.'
A girl who also looked like she got plucked from school joined the stage. Leonardo told me her name was Amie Shocker.
'Aaaaannnndddd, the most voted Promising Fighter...Kirin Monroe! Can you please make your way up to central stage!'