Jamal woke up inside his room in his bed. He felt his head bandaged up and still ached in pain. He looked around to see no one there and checked the time. His alarm clock read 4:20 p.m. Considering the fact that the tournament was around 9:30 a.m, wouldn't that mean he was almost out for 6 whole hours? He groggily tried to get back up, but a burst of pain forced him back down. Sucking it up, he tried again and through it all, got out of the bed. He limped towards the bathroom to look at himself clearly. His head was indeed covered with bandages and his eyes were a bit bloodshot. He felt his teeth and surprisingly none were cracked or loose. I should definitely invest in a mouth guard, he thought to himself as he cleaned his face. He felt around the bandages and decided to take it off. As soon as he finished he heard a knock on the door.
"Who is it?" he asked from the bathroom as he was prepared to walk out the door.
"It's Ula." she replied back.
Jamal stopped in his tracks. Her, now?
"Just a minute!" he yelled back at her.
Crap, what do I do, he quickly processed. Is she going to be weird by me again or she going to apologize for the fight, which I don't think she should do. But regardless, he took a deep breath and opened the door.
There she was, waiting by the side of the door. For some reason, she didn't seem too happy to be there.
"Is something wrong?" he questioned.
"Ah no, I'm just here to apologize for what happened, I guess." she muttered.
"Hey, don't worry about it. It was a quick but decisive fight, and you took me out of the ring." he replied back.
"Really?" her eyes widening.
"Of course, I probably would have came to you and done the same thing as you are doing to me right now." he replied to her.
But something was different. Whether it was the way she was acting, or looking at him, or anything else at the moment, it peaked his interest.
"Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?" he asked her.
"U-u-um, well, I just also wanted to say that I-" she began letting out, blushing a bit.
"Yo! You're up already!" Brat yelled from a distance, running towards him.
"Oh, yeah, I'm good. Thanks for checking up on me." Jamal replied back from afar.
"You know, I-I think I'll come back later." Ula said to him and begin walking away.
"Wait! What did I do?" he cried back, shocked by the decision. He didn't remember saying anything negative.
"How did you lose the fight? I thought you were the strongest out of all of us." Brat asked him as he passed Ula on her way out.
"I don't know, but I'll talk to you later." he told him as Jamal ran to Ula.
"Wait, did I do something? You left me over there really quickly." Jamal asked her.
"Oh, it's nothing! It just seemed that you should have talked to Brat since you finally woke up."
"So anyway, what did you want to tell me back there?" he finally asked her.
"I-I just wanted to say that I'm glad your okay. That's all!" she explained quickly.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm positive and I'm glad we had a good fight. I should get back to my room now. I'll see you tomorrow." she said, smiling a bit at the end and continued walking to the elevator.
Jamal watched as she waved back at him as the door was closing once she was in. Sigh, I hope she's alright.
"You know, I think she has a thing for you." Brat whispered from behind him.
Jamal jumped up in fright and fell to the floor. Not only did he say that out of nowhere, but did he just said she had a thing for him?
"Whoa, whoa, settle down for a second. Where did you get that from?" he had to ask.
"Oh, Fonda told me. She told me how over time she was impressed with what you've been doing and over time, began to start having feelings for you or something like that." Brat causally explained to him, "Maybe you should, you know, I don't know, maybe get together?"
And while Jamal wasn't going to lie and say she wasn't a terrible person, especially to him, he didn't really know what he would do. Plus, it all made sense from him just realizing what happened in the elevator, to her touching his hand. He didn't really have feelings for anyone at the moment but to focus on his training and prepare for the tournament. That's all he was aiming for.
"You know Brat, with that information, how about we keep it to ourselves. And then, we'll see what happens from there."
"Okay, but I'm just letting you know, even Hops knows too."
Jamal smacked his hand in his face. Either he was lying to him, or he was telling the truth.
"He isn't wrong, everyone but you knows." Fonda said, her arms crossed. "Like how are you now figuring this out? I thought it couldn't be obvious enough."
Okay, this is a lot of information to take in, Jamal considered, and seriously where are these people coming from?
"Okay, you know what, I'm just going to head back into my room and think about everything. Let's just pretend this conversation didn't happen and let it be the end of this from here on out. No one here is deciding how my life goes and that this is it." he announced before shutting and locking his door.
He sat down with his back on the door and almost punched the wall. How could he be so stupid and stubborn, to not see the facts ahead of him. Jamal didn't want to say yes right there and then, but he wasn't going to lie when he cared for her a bit. He took a deep, careful breath and got up and sat on a chair by the balcony. With this new information, he watched the sunset in the sky. This is my life, and my choices. I'll do what's best for me privately, and publicly. But this tournament is what's keeping me driven.