A familiar house, surrounded by a sturdy iron fence, stood before Jensen. Jensen glanced around the house, and, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, headed for the gate. The cold wind burned his face, and the pinkish wound on the bridge of his nose began to itch a little. As soon as he put his hand to the door, it swung open with such a crash that the sound was painful to his ears. El grimaced and raised his eyebrows at the grim face of the young man across from him. His blond curly hair, curly at the very ends, glistened wetly.
"Ha, hello," Jensen hummed.
Naene frowned, and a shapeless shadow lay across half of his face. Jensen bit his lip.
"What's wrong with your face? Are you in some kind of trouble?"
Naene, hearing this, clenched his teeth and moved toward him sharply, but was stopped by a heavy hand resting on his shoulder.
Dohwan, appearing behind him, curved the corners of his lips and looked at Jensen with a relaxed expression.
"Come in," he said, forcibly pushing Naene away from the door.
Jensen stepped over the threshold and into the dark hallway. The faint sour odor of perfume and sweat invaded his nostrils. Dohwan, walking in front, glanced back occasionally to check each step. The expression on his face and his cold, slyly squinting eyes made Jensen frown slightly.
The man seemed calm, but El was certain that after that embarrassing loss, he was clearly not going to be happy.
The stuffiness of the hallway penetrated under his jacket. As he unzipped his jacket, he exhaled, enjoying the coolness that ran down his body, but immediately felt something sharp pressed against his left side. Squinting, he noticed the top of Naene's head beside him, and in his calloused hands, a knife.
Huh. That guy just wouldn't settle down.
"You know it's illegal?" he asked in a careless tone.
The fair-haired man glared at him angrily from beneath his eyebrows and only held the blade tighter.
Somehow his reaction was eerily funny.
Jensen raised his dark eyebrows as he continued:
"Though I think you need one," a slight smirk spread across his lips. He turned his head to a young guy in a bright red t-shirt with strange fancy lettering on it and, circling him with his hand, blurted out. "Well, you know what I mean."
This guy was a whole head shorter than him, and Jensen wouldn't be Jensen if he didn't make a joke about it.
Naene's black eyes immediately flickered up. The palm holding the knife twitched slightly, as if wanting to ram it into his side.
Dohwan, hearing the conversations behind him, threw a warning glance at Naene, and the latter rolled his eyes and put the penknife back into his pocket with a snap.
Finally they reached the end of the hallway. The house didn't really look that big and long from the outside, but inside it was quite enormous. As the door creaked open pitifully, Dohwan drowned under the bright saturated light of the gymnasium and then half turned to Jensen, waiting for him to cross the threshold. El was prepared for any blows from the sidelines, or for the whole crowd, including the knife-wielding lunatic, to descend on him as he entered, but he was met with something unexpected.
Silence.
There was a boxing ring in the middle of the room, and three large, expensive machines in the corner. A few people were sitting on benches, resting after their workout, a few were still warming up near the black shabby pears, but they all froze as soon as the door opened. Jensen stepped into the depths of the room, immediately catching a few glances and bumping into a couple familiar faces. A smirk involuntarily appeared on his lips.
Dohwan stopped in front of the boy and, folding his arms across his chest, asked:
"Naene said you wanted to know about a group that distributes drugs. Did something happen at school?"
"Don't you know? Ryo Hong didn't tell you?"
Dohwan, pressing his lips together, shook his head.
"That guy hasn't shown up in days. He's burning with embarrassment, I'll give you that," the guys behind him laughed unanimously when they heard that.
"As I can see, he's not exactly respected here," Jensen tossed, his eyes sweeping the spacious room. How could all this fit into one house?
Dohwan hummed:
"Respect. As long as he doesn't get into troub..."
"Some kid was drugged right in his school food and died afterward. What kind of drug is that?"
Dohwan froze without speaking. Lips moving silently, he looked thoughtful and wary. A few of the boys behind him stirred and, with a glance, moved closer. Even Naene, hearing this, fell into a stupor.
"Could it be...?" neatly asked one of the company.
"Who, if not him?" hissed Dohwan through gritted teeth.
Jensen answered bluntly:
"I'm not going to get into any of this shit, but I want to know who to watch out for."
"Why would you do that?" asked Dohwan.
Jensen pushed the inside of his cheek with his tongue and twitched his shoulders.
"Do you care about this house?"
Dohwan frowned and after a few seconds answered clearly:
"Yes."
"And you'd give a kidney for it if you had to?"
Naene squinted and reached a hand into his pocket, but was stopped again by Dohwan.
"Yes."
"There you go," Jensen nodded in a low tone. "We both have something we need to protect. I just need the information. Ladybug said someone would need to clear the hoses, and here I am."
Dohwan arched an eyebrow, looked slightly ironically at the Naene who had flared up with anger, and nodded.
"Yes. You do realize we can't just leave that situation like that. You didn't break our boys' bones, but you did hurt their pride. That's why we want a little rematch."
"That's why I'm here," Jensen nodded in agreement.
"Great," he turned his head and called out softly to someone. "Hey, Eunho! Let's get to it."
A shadow separated from one of the punching bags in the corner of the gym. A man appeared at a slow measured pace near the ring. His short black hair was slightly disheveled, sweat streaming down his tanned face. This same Eunho was tall, probably the same height as Jensen, and the taut body showed firmly defined muscles at times. A slight laughing smile appeared on his face.
"Eunho," he introduced himself.
"Jensen."
The guy nodded at the ring and slid through the ropes and straightened up, heading for the opposite corner. Jensen followed, simultaneously pulling his winter jacket off his shoulders, followed by his T-shirt. Baring his torso, he tossed the T-shirt aside carelessly. Naene, whose face was smelling something baked, threw it to the floor in disgust.
Dohwan, following the expression on his face, grinned slightly.
Jensen was handed his gloves and mouthpiece. Tightening them tightly, he quickly looked around at the figure of his opponent.
Eunho swayed casually on his heels, glancing in his direction with interest and occasionally rubbing his side. Jensen squinted, finding a small greenish hematoma there.
So he'd already been out fighting someone before he came in.
"How did you manage to take our guys down?" asked Eunho curiously. "Where did you learn to do that? Or do you box?"
Jensen pressed his lips together and jerked his shoulder a little.
"I was just lucky enough to meet a bad man."
Eunho stopped, a look of bewilderment on his face.
"What...?"
Dohwan, squeezing in between them, looked around at his opponents and said:
"The rules, I think you both know the rules, right?" Jensen nodded. Eunho was still stubbornly glaring at him. "Fine. If Eunho loses, we'll give you the information you need and hope you use it properly instead of turning yourself in to the police, right? Neither you nor we want any trouble. Just, like you said, keep protecting your own, stay out of our business."
The hall filled with voices. Dohwan continued.
"Well, and if you lose... It's pretty fair to do the same to you, right? The guys are so itching for fists."
El nodded.
"Excellent," Dohwan said. "Well, get started, then."
Putting the mouthpiece in his mouth, Jensen immediately took a stance.
One crisp punch whistled past his ear and was executed with precision. Jensen ducked, bent down, and tensed his arm to strike at his ribcage, but his movement was interrupted by a solid block. Eye to eye.
As they tore toward each other again, Jensen had to move sideways to avoid being knocked out.
They circled around each other for a few minutes, getting up close and personal and throwing a couple of warm-up punches each.
A few guys gaped and turned on their phones to continue watching the movie.
The first punch that diluted the atmosphere came to Eunho's face. A stream of blood spurted from the cracked skin on his chin. The guy didn't stagger back, continuing to stare at Jensen with sharp hawk eyes. Wetting his throat with saliva, El squinted, lunged forward, and before he could turn away, he received a knuckle to the cheekbone.
Everything went blurry before his eyes. A sharp pain scorched his cheek, and feeling a drop of hot blood roll down his cheek, Jensen shook his head.
Bright spots of light bloomed before his eyes, obscuring his vision.
Hit it. Hit it. Hit!
Drawing in the stuffy air with his nose, Jensen covered his eyes and threw his half-bent arm forward. Eunho, hearing only the wind whistling in front of him, took the blow and felt his legs buckle, then pushed himself backward, his back slumping against the tight cables.
Unable to see anything in front of his eyes, he reflexively shielded himself from the next blow, rolling over and bending slightly. His back was wet and slippery with sweat.
Dohwan, who was standing near the ring, pressed his lips together disappointedly.
The loss was obvious.
"That's it," Eunho spat out his mouthpiece and muffled his words. His chest heaved sharply as he cleaned the liquid blood from his mouth with his tongue. He bent over, pulling off his gloves, and leaned on his knees, trying to get his breathing back to normal. Jensen, slumped against the other side of the ring, stood with his head down. Blood flowed profusely from a cut wound on his cheekbone.
Suddenly a shot rang out.
The guys who were watching the movie were stunned when they saw the bullet stuck in the forehead of the main villain.
Eunho uncurled with a groan. Spitting another clot of blood, he turned to Jensen and opened his mouth, but not a single word came out.
Jensen continued to stand in a crouched position as well, but his head was now turned directly at Eunho.
The guy's eyes widened and his body unconsciously pressed back into the ring.
The stranger's unblinking gaze, covered in a veil, tracked his every move like a rabid animal watching its prey.
Eunho had fought many in this ring. They were both simpletons and quite professional boxers, but the eyes of those were filled with nothing but lust for victory.
This man was eerily strange. There was nothing in his eyes. A smoldering emptiness full of cruelty.
Dohwan, sensing the changed atmosphere, loosened his hands and shouted:
"Hey! The fight is over. You won."
However, Jensen didn't move from his seat, continuing to devour Eunho with his eyes. Everything collapsed inside the guy as the alien figure quickly covered the distance, pinned him to the ropes with his heavy hands and delivered the first blow straight to his face with a cracking sound.
Eunho's mouth immediately filled with blood as he heard the loud crunch of his own nose.
He screamed in pain and tried to push away the body looming over him, but it was so immobile that all his efforts were in vain.
Jensen, his face pale and covered in both his own and other people's blood, continued to beat his opponent methodically.
"Hey! What the fuck! Stop!" yelled Dohwan, scrambling under the ropes and approaching the two soaked bodies. He grabbed his shoulder, hoping to pull them apart, but it didn't work.
It got a lot worse when El finally pulled away from Eunho and turned to face Dohwan.
The guy, feeling a pressure that made his skin goosebumps, took a few steps back, hypnotized by the cold and merciless gaze.
"Jensen, are you out of your mind? The fight is over," he whispered before his throat was squeezed by someone else's stinging fingers, wet with blood.
Everything happened in an instant. His body tumbled across the ring with a loud thud and collapsed to the floor.
The room was filled with a deafening silence. Naene rushed over to Dohwan and brought his fingers to his nose.
The man was breathing quietly but intermittently.
Jensen leisurely jumped over the ropes and froze, watching them. The tall figure looked like a hewn stone upon which sacrifices were performed. There was not a single spot from which blood did not flow.
Naene, deftly dodging, drew a knife from his pocket and swung the hilt at the open wound on his cheekbone.
Jensen stepped back, his back colliding with the ring.
Unclenching his fists, he covered his face with his hand and wiped it slowly, wrinkling his nose at the blood flooding his mouth.
The hundreds of male voices piercing through his head fell silent. The gunfire, which resumed every second like the howling of a drum, had also disappeared.
He finally felt the pain that shook his whole body.
"Mad dog," Naene squeezed out through gritted teeth.
The people behind him with dumbfounded faces watched them motionless.
A groan sounded behind them. Eunho lifted his head and barely managed to roll over onto his back. His entire face looked like one solid bleeding bruise.
Jensen turned to him silently and picked up his things from the floor and strode toward the exit, pulling on a T-shirt and staggering on his way.
"I'm sorry," he said dryly, slamming the door loudly.
Dohwan struggled to rise and sit up, groping the bruises covering his neck and surveying the tense crowd with unfocused eyes.
"It's like being kicked in the ass by your mother for dirty underwear," he quipped jokingly.
The guys, relieved, laughed, and only Naene continued to glare at him.
"Tell him what he wants,'" Dohwan exhaled painfully, tilting his head back. "This guy is really nuts."
Naene, stashing the knife in his pocket, nodded.
Jensen wandered through the dark courtyards and, finding a secluded spot, pressed his shaking back against the cold wall. Sliding down it, he pulled a cigarette from his pocket with trembling fingers and, dabbing at the lighter, pressed it between his lips, throwing his head back. The frozen rock scorched the back of his head and sent uncontrollable shivers through his body.
Jensen was shaking.
The newly returned voices, full of anger and mockery, made him squeeze his eyes shut against the pain in his temples. The pain stretched like threads that pulled his whole body into a spider's cocoon.
There was a sea of voices, and they wouldn't stop.
Jensen exhaled the cloud of smoke that clung to his face, and then clenched his right palm, which was shaking convulsively, and jabbed it into the snowdrift.
The voices continued to devour his brain.
Clutching the cigarette, he flicked it to the ground and, taking a clump of sticky white snow in his palm, shoved it over his trembling white lips.
Before his eyes, like frames from an old film movie, the memories he so desperately wanted to forget began to unravel.
Get it out of his head. He had to get it out of his head!!!
"Mommy..." the boy mumbled with his mouth full, pressing his cold, wet palms against his face.
His cheeks crinkled, smearing the blood spurting from the wound on his cheekbone.
The snow beneath him turned a dark red color.
It hurts. It hurts so bad!
Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes, salty drops spreading down his cheeks, irritating the wounds.
Sniffing the air burning his lungs with his nose, Jensen brushed his black bangs back and pulled his phone out of his pocket.
"You alpwdy at bome?" He barely hit the screen with shaky fingers, so the letters floating in front of his eyes looked like solid, hideously typed text.
After a couple minutes, a reply came back.
"Yes. Where have you been lurking? Come back, I bought your favorite chips."
Hyun was used to his brother occasionally misspelling when he was in a hurry, so he didn't pay proper attention to it.
A soft smile slid across Jensen's chapped lips. The intermittent breathing slowly calmed down, but his ribcage still lifted sharply, causing his heart to beat and pound.
"Already retutmed."