How Could I Just Let Something Like This Go
How could I just let something like this go?
"Your Round 2 opponent hasn't been decided yet," Rachel said a few days later when she came to the café. As always, she held a tablet in her hand.
"The tournament bracket gets announced next week. Until then, just rest and manage your condition. Your debut made such a splash that everyone's waiting for Han Daewong's next match."
"…Yes."
I answered shortly.
Rachel got excited and rattled on for a while about the interview requests pouring in, the sponsors, and so on. But her words barely registered.
Something else kept circling in my head.
The debut fight. Those three seconds.
Kim Do-chol flying off my fist.
Teeth scattering in every direction.
The way they carried him out on a stretcher.
…Even holding back, that was the result.
"…Rachel."
"Yes?"
"…That match. Do-chol."
I hesitated a moment, then spoke.
"…I didn't hit him for real."
Rachel lifted her eyes from the tablet.
"…What?"
"I didn't hit him seriously. I pulled… almost all the power. Just a little harder than when I normally… tap a vending machine. That was all."
"…A vending machine?"
Her expression turned strange.
I nodded.
"If I'd hit him for real… it felt like it wouldn't have been okay."
"…Why?"
"…His head."
I chose my words carefully. I didn't know how to explain it.
"…If I'd hit him for real, Do-chol's head… would have burst like a watermelon."
Silence settled over the café for a beat.
Rachel stared at me.
It was the face of someone telling me not to joke. Or rather, the face of someone hoping it was a joke.
But I hadn't been joking, and I didn't bother adding that.
I had simply stated a fact.
Rachel couldn't find words for a while.
Burst like a watermelon.
At first she thought it was a joke.
The kind of empty bravado a rookie who just scored a three-second KO in his debut would toss out to cover his embarrassment. Ordinary fighters did it all the time.
"I held back."
"That wasn't full power."
The usual chest-puffing to save face.
But.
Han Daewong's eyes weren't the eyes of a man spinning a story.
They were far too calm. As if he himself had no idea what he had just said.
He had spoken about a human head bursting like a watermelon in the exact same tone someone might use to remark, "It's a little hot today."
That was what made her skin crawl even more.
…He's lying, right?
Rachel repeated it to herself.
The scene of Kim Do-chol flying without ever getting a hand up.
That massive frame rising like a sheet of paper while spit, blood, and teeth sprayed in every direction.
Rachel had assumed that was full power.
A rookie's all-out shot, nerves wound tight for a debut.
But if—if that had truly been him holding back.
If a punch with nearly all the force pulled, no harder than tapping a vending machine, had looked like that.
…If he had hit for real.
Rachel swallowed hard.
She didn't even want to imagine what would have happened to a human head under that blow. A chill ran down her spine.
Yet alongside the chill, her mind—the mind of a matchmaker—was already racing.
…Wait. Then this means…
His physique was already complete.
No—it had gone past complete. There was nothing left to teach. No need for him to get stronger. Whoever stepped in, it would end with one finger.
But that was exactly the problem.
He was too strong.
The octagon was not a place for killing people.
There were rules. There was a referee. The opponent had to walk out alive.
But the moment this man went all out, he killed. He had to hold back and hold back again just to make a fight possible.
So what this monster needed was—
…Not technique.
Rachel understood.
He didn't need to learn more punches or pick up grappling.
What he needed was a way to rein in that overwhelming power.
How much force to use so the other man didn't die. How to stop. That fine control.
And ordinary coaches couldn't teach that.
Normal coaches taught "harder, stronger."
What this man needed was the exact opposite.
"Softer. More carefully. So you don't kill him." Was there even a coach who knew how to teach that?
Rachel ran through every coach she knew.
Famous striking coaches.
Grappling masters.
Conditioning trainers.
All of them were meaningless for this man. They made people stronger; they didn't teach how to take power away.
Then, suddenly, one face surfaced.
An eccentric old man almost forgotten by the fight world.
…If it's him.
Bae Jong-gap.
He had once been a successful coach, then vanished from the scene overnight.
Rumor said that before he coached fighters he had handled wild beasts.
Circus, zoo, or somewhere rougher—no one was sure—but he had tamed tigers and bears, animals that could kill a man in one bite.
Everyone called the old man a crackpot, washed up.
But Rachel remembered something he had once said.
"Anyone can make a strong guy stronger. The real hard part is teaching him how to stop."
At the time it had sounded like nonsense.
Now, sitting across from Han Daewong, the words fit perfectly.
How to control a beast's power.
As far as Rachel knew, only that old man understood it.
"…Han Daewong."
Rachel opened her mouth.
"I'm going to introduce you to a coach."
"…A coach?"
"Yes. He's a bit… eccentric. But he might be the only person who can teach you what you need. At least among the people I know."
Even as she said it, Rachel half-doubted herself.
Was the old man even still alive? Would he take a coaching job again?
More than anything—could he handle a real monster like Han Daewong…
…Yet strangely.
If it was that eccentric old man, she had the feeling he wouldn't so much as blink in front of this monster.
In fact—
…He might even enjoy it.
That premonition settled over her.
Bae Jong-gap's Gym sat on the second floor of a rundown commercial building on the outskirts of the city.
From the outside it looked ordinary.
A faded sign simply read "Bae Jong-gap's Gym," and the stairs creaked. It was a world away from the gleaming modern MMA gyms that were trendy these days.
Just a neighborhood gym soaked in years.
But once you opened the door, the story changed.
Every wall was covered in animal photographs.
Tigers.
Lions.
Bears.
Leopards.
Every one of them a predator that could kill a man in a single bite. And in those photos, a younger Bae Jong-gap stood right beside the beasts.
In one he rested a hand on a tiger's scruff; in another he locked eyes with a massive bear.
A fight gym plastered with pictures of wild animals.
Anyone visiting for the first time would have found it strange.
Yet the owner himself seemed not to care about the photos at all. He sat slumped in a worn chair in the corner, dozing.
An old man who looked well past seventy.
Messy white hair, dark age spots, a loose tracksuit. The kind of neighborhood grandfather you could see anywhere. But his hands alone were unusually thick and rough—the hands of someone who had spent a lifetime handling dangerous things.
"Sir, are you in?"
Rachel called as she opened the door.
"…Huh? Oh, oh."
Bae Jong-gap cracked his eyes open. Then he saw Rachel and let out a short laugh.
"Well, look who it is. Matchmaker Kim herself. Coming all the way out to see this old man. What's the occasion?"
"It's been a while, sir. I have a favor to ask."
"A favor? From me? From an old man the fight world forgot years ago?"
Bae Jong-gap pushed himself up from the chair. As he did, his eyes flicked to the figure standing behind Rachel.
In that instant.
The old man's sleepy eyes snapped wide open.
"…."
Behind Rachel stood a giant of a man.
Tall enough that his head nearly brushed the ceiling. Shoulders that filled the doorframe. Anyone seeing him for the first time would have been crushed by the sheer size first.
But what Bae Jong-gap saw was not the size.
…What the hell is that.
His body locked up on pure instinct.
He had spent a lifetime among wild beasts.
He had walked into tiger cages, fed lions, and tamed Asiatic black bears that could tear a man apart.
Over those years Bae Jong-gap had developed an eye that recognized animals.
And that eye was screaming a warning right now.
That thing was not human.
Outwardly he was clearly a man.
He stood on two legs, wore clothes, wore a human face.
But the presence rolling off him— it was the exact presence of the predators Bae Jong-gap had faced inside cages his whole life.
Even standing still, the pressure that crushed the space around him.
The tiny shifts of the eyes that measured the surroundings the way a hunter measures prey. And above all, the stillness.
The silence that only a true apex predator possesses—the kind that has no need to snarl because it already overwhelms everything.
…This is a beast wearing human skin.
Bae Jong-gap was certain.
It was the instinctive certainty of a man who had watched nothing but animals for decades.
Then, suddenly.
His gaze moved to the man's shoulders and back.
That massive frame. The body that looked heavy yet hid explosive power. And the color of those beast-like eyes.
Where had he seen it before.
Something stirred at the bottom of his memory.
That overwhelming bulk. That aura that felt both dull and ferocious at once. It was exactly like…
…A bear?
The word rose unbidden.
Among all the predators he had ever known, the largest and most terrifying.
The one that could split a cow in half with a single swipe of its forepaw… the same presence was pouring off the man in front of him.
But.
…No. That's ridiculous.
Bae Jong-gap immediately shook his head.
In the end he was human. No matter how animal he felt, the thing standing there was clearly a man on two feet.
A bear turning into a person—that was the stuff of fairy tales.
Must be seeing things in my old age. He wiped the absurd thought from his mind.
Yet even after he wiped it away.
The chill that had run down his spine refused to fade.
"…Sir?"
Rachel called, puzzled. Bae Jong-gap had frozen while staring at the man.
"…Ah, no."
He cleared his throat.
"…Matchmaker Kim. This fellow—is he the fighter you mentioned?"
"Yes. Han Daewong. The three-second KO in his debut… you might have seen it."
"I know. I watched the video."
Bae Jong-gap looked at the man—Han Daewong—again.
He had seen the debut footage. The single punch that sent the opponent flying in three seconds.
Everyone called him a monster, a broken character. But standing face-to-face was on another level from watching a screen.
The video had only shown the result.
The pressure he felt now—that was the essence underneath the result.
"…Han Daewong, was it?"
Bae Jong-gap spoke slowly.
"…Yeah. Yes."
A low, heavy voice. The man answered briefly.
Bae Jong-gap looked straight into those eyes. They were gentle, almost soft. Yet deep inside them, a beast was clearly crouched and waiting.
For a long time the old man said nothing.
Then he gave a short laugh.
"…Heh. I thought I'd seen every kind of beast there was in my life."
Bae Jong-gap stood fully. The sleepy look was gone without a trace.
His eyes shone the way a predator's do when it spots prey—or rather, the way a trainer's do when he finally meets something worth handling.
"…This is a first."
Rachel asked carefully.
"…Sir. What do you think? Can you take him on?"
Instead of answering, Bae Jong-gap took a step toward Han Daewong.
Then he looked up at the giant.
A seventy-year-old man looking up at a mountain of a fighter—and not the slightest bit cowed. If anything, his face was full of interest.
"…You."
Bae Jong-gap asked.
"You ever been scared of your own strength?"
Han Daewong's shoulders twitched, just barely.
Bae Jong-gap didn't miss it.
"…You have. You have."
He grinned.
"Afraid you'll hurt someone. Afraid you'll kill them. So you always hold back, pull the power, grit your teeth. …Right?"
Han Daewong didn't answer. But the silence itself was the answer.
Bae Jong-gap nodded.
"Yeah. That's your problem. Being strong isn't the issue—it's that you don't know how to control that strength."
The old man's voice suddenly turned serious.
"That's what I've done my whole life. Teaching beasts that can kill a man how to stop. How to pull in the claws, how to hide the teeth, how to hold the power down."
Bae Jong-gap tapped Han Daewong's chest. The massive body didn't move an inch.
"…You're exactly that."
Then he turned to Rachel.
"I'll take him. How could I just let something like this go?"
A grin full of pure eccentricity spread across Bae Jong-gap's face.
"…It's been a long time since things looked this interesting."