She Wins While Bleeding
"…Y-you just say stuff like that all the time like it's nothing."
The lights were beating down.
A few industrial fixtures hung from the low ceiling were all they had, and that light fell across Seo-yeon's black bob.
She was small.
Up on the ring, she looked even smaller.
She was a full two heads shorter than the male fighters standing among the crowd.
But the strange part was…
Seo-yeon didn't look small.
Her presence wasn't small. That was what it meant.
"First time seein' Seo-yeon's match?"
"…Yes."
"Heehee. Then take a real good look~ This ain't somethin' you get to see easy even if you pay for it."
Park Do-hyun grinned as he pointed at the ring.
A woman a full head taller than Seo-yeon stood on the other side. Broad shoulders. Thick forearms. The weight gap was obvious.
A build like that had to put her in the high sixties, kilos-wise.
Seo-yeon, no matter how you looked at her, didn't even look like she hit fifty.
More than ten kilos of difference.
In fighting, ten kilos is huge.
Even watching UFC broadcasts, when the weight classes didn't match, the fights barely made sense.
…Is that okay?
I was worried.
"Worried, are ya~?"
Park Do-hyun had read my face.
"…A little."
"Heehee. It's the other side that oughta be worried~"
What was he talking about.
With a weight gap like that?
The moment she stepped onto the ring, the sound changed.
It was different from hearing it down below. The crowd's roar climbed up through the soles of her feet. Air thick with the mixed stink of sweat, blood, and booze.
Familiar. She hated that it was familiar.
…I'm back.
She missed the hospital bed.
She missed the terrible canned coffee.
She missed those quiet stretches of time sitting beside Han Daewong without a word.
But this was reality.
Her opponent stood on the far side of the ring.
Shin Ha-yul.
Seo-yeon knew that face. There was no way not to.
Sharp features, cold eyes—a frame that, outside the ring, you could have believed belonged to a model.
But the shoulders and forearms under that pretty face were a fighter's, not a model's. Dense. Hard. Muscle that had thrown punches for real.
Current record: 1–0. Seo-yeon was ahead.
Ha-yul looked her way. Their eyes met. Those cold eyes raked over Seo-yeon.
"Long time. Where'd you disappear to? I figured you'd retired."
"…Isn't it a little early to retire?"
"Who knows. You might've gotten rusty while you were gone."
The corner of Shin Ha-yul's mouth lifted. A smile on a pretty face—except the eyes weren't smiling.
Seo-yeon didn't smile either. Both of them knew how to smile. Neither of them did it for real.
Maybe this world had made them this way.
"You know you got lucky last time, right? If I'd held on a little longer, I would've won."
"Lucky or skilled, the one who ended up on the floor was you."
Ha-yul's eyes changed. Heat rose into the cold.
"Today I'm gonna flatten that pretty nose of yours. Golden Cat."
"…Worry about your own pretty face. I heard after my fist painted that bruise on you last time, you wore sunglasses for a whole month."
The crowd stirred. The air between the two of them had frozen solid.
Ha-yul bared her teeth in a grin. It wasn't a smile. It was a show of teeth.
Seo-yeon raised her guard and closed her fists. Callused fingers settled into familiar places.
And right then—
…Ah.
She saw the big shadow standing off to one side of the seats.
Han Daewong.
The man whose name she had given him was looking up at the ring with those huge eyes.
…She did not want him to see her lose.
She didn't know why.
Through twelve straight wins, it hadn't mattered who was watching.
Winning or losing hadn't mattered.
Surviving here had been the only thing that counted.
But today was different.
That man was watching.
"Fight!!"
The referee's hand dropped.
Ha-yul moved first. Forward pressure. A style that used her solid frame to crowd you. She closed the distance with big strides.
A fist came flying. Fast. Faster than last time.
Hook!
Half a step. Barely slipped it.
…Heavy.
Even a graze carried a different kind of pressure. She could not take that clean. One of those was a finisher.
Another one came. Hook from the left! She ducked and the fist sailed over her head.
Right after—
As she came back up out of the crouch, she drove her right fist up under the other woman's jaw.
Thud!
It landed clean on the point of the chin and Ha-yul's head snapped back.
…That went in.
But she didn't go down. Ha-yul clenched her teeth and hung on. Last time that shot had shaken her—she'd built her chin. Meaning she'd trained to take punches with her jaw locked.
…For me?
Ha-yul grinned through a bloody mouth.
Seo-yeon threw a left jab. Ha-yul rolled her head and slipped it. The jab was bait. Seo-yeon stepped in and buried a right hook in the ribs.
Thud!
Ha-yul gritted her teeth. She didn't give ground. She came forward instead. A right straight cracked out as a counter.
The fist grazed Seo-yeon's cheek. The taste of blood spread through her mouth.
…She's gotten stronger.
Faster and heavier than last time. She'd built herself for this.
Ha-yul grinned through the blood on her mouth.
"Got rusty, Golden Cat."
Seo-yeon grinned right back through the blood on hers.
"…Still just warming up."
The competitive fire climbed.
Ha-yul spread both arms and came in to clinch.
Clinch—she absolutely could not get caught. Against someone with that kind of size advantage, a clinch meant getting crushed by raw strength.
She twisted. Slipped between Ha-yul's arms like water. On the way out she drove a knee into the ribs.
Thud!
Ha-yul let out a breath. Liver.
…The parts that still don't hold up against me are the same.
The brawl began.
Seo-yeon put out a jab; Ha-yul answered with a hook.
Ha-yul charged; Seo-yeon planted a knee.
When one tried to grab, the other slipped. When one slipped, the other chased. When one chased, the other hit. When one hit, the other got hit.
Blood flew. Whose, no one could tell. Both of them were cut open.
Ha-yul's fist cracked across Seo-yeon's forehead. The skin above her eye split. Blood ran down into her left eye. Her vision halved.
…One eye.
Didn't matter. One was enough.
Seo-yeon's knee dug into Ha-yul's side again. Ha-yul leaked air.
Same spot. The exact place she'd hit before. Even if a body took it twice, the third shot always made it answer.
Ha-yul's guard dropped—instinct reaching to cover the ribs.
…There.
Low kick. Her left foot slammed dead into the inside of Ha-yul's lead thigh.
Crack!
Ha-yul's knee buckled and she staggered.
…Now.
Seo-yeon looked up from below. Last time those cold eyes of Ha-yul's had never once shaken all the way to the end…
Today, they shook.
She put her weight into it. Planted the right foot, twisted the hips, turned the shoulder. Every bit of force in her body gathered into one fist.
Right straight.
Seo-yeon's fist cracked hard into Ha-yul's temple.
THUD—!!
Right after, Ha-yul's eyes went empty and her head snapped around.
Thump.
Ha-yul's solid body collapsed and the ring floor rang with it.
One… two… three seconds.
And then the roar that shook the underground.
"WOOOOOOOO—!!"
"GOLDEN CAT!!"
"THIRTEEN STRAIGHT!!"
Seo-yeon dragged in air and lifted her head. And right away she found Han Daewong in the seats, staring at her.
Even in a crowd of over a hundred, he was impossible to miss. Not looking at that bulk would have been the harder thing.
…You saw that, right?
Seo-yeon grinned wide, on purpose. Blood still smeared on the corner of her mouth.
Somewhere along the way, the eyes of the bear of a man looking down from the seats had changed.
Not the gentle eyes from when she'd first seen him in the hospital.
Something else. Living eyes. That expression right now—that was it.
I knew it…
That man belonged here.
Maybe even more than she did.
Seo-yeon lifted her head. Then she looked at me and grinned wide.
Blood still on the corner of her mouth.
…
Something was wrong in my chest.
A feeling I couldn't name.
It wasn't satisfying.
She'd won, and it still wasn't satisfying.
That that small body had won while bleeding.
That she was smiling while bleeding.
It was incredible—and at the same time, it hurt.
Park Do-hyun spoke beside me.
"…Seo-yeon, see."
No playfulness in his voice.
Not the same way of talking as before.
Serious.
"She's always like that. She wins while takin' the hits."
"…"
"She's small, so… winnin' without gettin' hurt is hard. Weight gap and all."
Park Do-hyun looked at the ring.
"But she always wins. While gettin' hit. While bleedin'. Every time."
"…Why."
I asked.
Why she fought like this.
Park Do-hyun was quiet a moment, then carefully opened his mouth.
"…She's got a debt."
"A debt?"
"From when she was little. Ain't somethin' that kid chose. She was born into the debt, and they stood her up in here to pay it off."
"…"
"Fightin' ain't a job for her."
Park Do-hyun's eyes darkened.
"It's survival."
…
I looked at Seo-yeon up on the ring.
She was coming down. She threaded through the crowd and walked toward me.
She was smiling.
Bright. Wide open. Like none of it mattered at all.
Blood still on the corner of her mouth, and she was bright. She'd wiped the blood running from above her eye with the back of her hand and only smeared it worse. Smiling like that.
…She's pretending it doesn't matter.
I'd learned something when I was a bear. Beasts don't show pain even when it hurts. Show weakness and you get eaten.
Seo-yeon was the same. To survive at the bottom of a place like this, you couldn't show that it hurt. Even bleeding, you had to smile bright.
Seo-yeon stopped in front of me. Looked up. Looked a long way up.
"Well? Surprised?"
Bright.
Blood on the corner of her mouth, and the smile was still so bright.
"You fight well."
"Of course I do. I'm on a thirteen-fight streak, man."
"…But."
"Hm?"
"Doesn't it hurt?"
Seo-yeon's smile faltered.
Only for a heartbeat. The smile came right back.
"It doesn't hurt."
A lie.
Bears can't lie.
But Seo-yeon lies.
Because Seo-yeon is human.
"Hey, stop staring and hand me the water. I'm thirsty."
"…"
I looked beside me. A plastic water bottle sat on the bench. I picked it up and held it out. As I did, I looked at my own hand.
A bear's forepaw.
I blinked.
A human hand.
…What could I do with this hand.
Seo-yeon took the water and gulped it down. Halfway through she stopped.
"…What are you looking at."
"No… are you sure you're okay?"
"I said I'm fine."
Seo-yeon turned her head. The tips of her ears were red.
I still didn't know what I could do with this hand. But I knew one thing. If I could use these cannonball fists for Seo-yeon.
…Maybe I should try fighting here too.
The thought came for the first time.
"You coming again tomorrow?"
"…Yeah."
Seo-yeon's expression loosened, just a little. She didn't seem to notice it herself, but the corner of her mouth tipped up.
"Oho~ Look at that face change the second Seo-yeon says she's comin' tomorrow~"
Park Do-hyun cut in from behind.
Seo-yeon's ears went red again.
"…Nothing's changing. Shut up."
"Aigoo~ Eyes all sparklin' and you call that nothin'~"
"…Sparkling?"
I looked at Seo-yeon's eyes. Those bright yellow irises were shining under the lights.
Without thinking, I set a hand on her shoulder. Checking without much thought whether anything from the ring was still hurting, I muttered,
"…Don't they always sparkle? Your eyes are yellow."
Seo-yeon froze. The look of someone only now registering that a hand the size of a manhole cover had swallowed her whole shoulder.
"…Y-you just say stuff like that all the time like it's nothing."
Dialect slipped out. Dialect she never used. Even Seo-yeon herself seemed startled. She clapped a hand over her mouth.
"Aigoo~ Hahaha!! The dialect's out, the dialect!! How many years has it been~!!"
Seo-yeon smacked Park Do-hyun over the head with the water bottle.
"Shut up."
"Ow!! You just won a fight, right?! Why are you hittin' me!!"
"Close your mouth and you won't get hit."
Seo-yeon swatted my hand. It didn't move. She hit it again. Still didn't move.
"…Move your hand."
"Ah. Sorry."
I took it away. Seo-yeon whipped her head around. Her ears were red. Her neck was red.
Looking at that, I smiled. Just a little.
A concrete basement. A place where beasts shaped like people lived.
But even here, there were moments when you could laugh.