neon medusa - chapter two

[kyumills]

 Every good love story starts in a grungey, dirty, gym. At least, every good love story revolving the Neon Medusa, anyway. 

Sangyeon meets Sunwoo early on a Saturday morning, right as the sun rises in through the windows through the gym. The gym had just recently opened--bright and early at six am when Jacob requires Sangyeon to be at the gym to spar--and Sangyeon was the first to enter. He sets his duffel bag down by one of the punching bags, rummaging through it to find his wraps. The sounds of fists colliding with punching bags fills his ears. 

A rather ordinary day, if Sangyeon were honest. 

If it weren’t for the fact that there was an attractive stranger that caught his eye. Of course, he wasn’t privy to the fact that said attractive stranger was Kim Sunwoo, the man he was meant to pummel into the ground not even four days after their meeting. All Sangyeon could register is the fact that this stranger was one, attractive, and two, extremely light on his feet. He wonders about this stranger--wants to know what he’s doing here, what his name is, and if he’s single. 

Is Sangyeon curious about the guy? Yes. He doesn’t look like the type of guy who’d box. Dance maybe, but box? No way. 

“Hey,” Jacob says, putting on his sparring gloves. He watches as Sangyeon stares at the guy on ropes, going through his reps. He sighs, going straight up to Sangyeon and whacking him hard on the head with his glove. “Pay attention, hyung,” Jacob continues, “Put your game face on, we’ve got four days.” 

“Ow, fuck, Cob,” Sangyeon says, “What was that for?” 

“Lack of attention,” Jacob replies simply, “If I were your opponent, I would have bashed your head in by this point. Your lack of attention would have given me a chance to take you down, you’ve gotta be focused.”

“Right,” Sangyeon answers. He shakes his head a little bit, getting into position. He’s careful of his fucked up knee. Injury is common in underground fighting--if you’re not hurt you’re doing it all wrong seems to be the motto of the entire underground ring at this point. Bruises and cuts are often the main perpetrators of underground fighting injuries, but once in a while you get people who fight not for the money, but to hurt someone so badly that they probably won’t recover--that’s when you get the snapped bones and the injuries that cause fighters to lose their ability to fight in the ring, no matter how much they want to. 

Sangyeon hasn’t had one of those yet surprisingly. He’s thought by now he’d have dealt with a person like that, a person who wanted to beat him half to death because they could, but everything has been surprisingly tame up to this point. Still, even with the knowledge that the next fight might not be so tame, Sangyeon continues to stare at the pretty guy in the corner--the one Sangyeon hopes he sees around here more. He’s transfixed on his eyes, the only part of his face that he can see with a mask covering the rest of it. “Who were you even looking at, hyung?” Jacob says with a click of his tongue. 

“No one. Let’s just go.” 

“Was it him?” Jacob asks quietly, pulling off a focus mitt and pointing between the punching bags. There’s a man with a buzz cut sweating onto the mats.  He punches the bag with full force, causing it to swing wildly before he stops it. There’s rage in that guy’s eyes, concerning rage that Sangyeon didn’t want to get involved in.  That’s not the guy Sangyeon was looking at. 

Not to be rude, but there was no beauty to that guy.

“No one. Come on, Cob.” 

“Ooh, how about him?” Jacob points to someone else. “He’s really pretty.” 

“Shut it.” Sangyeon reaches forward to knock Jacob in the shoulder with half his strength, bruised knuckles stinging slightly. He can’t help but wince just a bit as his knuckles make contact with the solid bone of Jacob’s shoulder, shaking the pain from his  knuckles as he shakes his hand before balling them back up into fists. “You called me here to train,” he continues, “You’re wasting time.” 

“Excuse me? I’m not the one with wandering eyes, hyung,” Jacob says. He raises the mitt toward the top of his head, where Sangyeon makes solid contact with it. Jacob nods. “I was just trying to figure out whether or not who you were staring at would beat the absolute shit out of you right where you stood, that’s all.”

“Okay, my eyes were not wandering--” Sangyeon replies, dodging Jacob’s attempt to hit him with a right hook. 

“Yes they were,” Jacob says, painfully grazing the barely healed wound on his earlobe.. Jacob cements his stance into the ground, eyes staring deadly at him, and Sangyeon knows he’s getting serious as he raises his hands as targets. “But anyway. Jab.”

Sangyeon scowls, jabbing the mitt with his left hand. He’s more than careful to focus on Jacob just enough to dodge his blows, but his eyes wander over Jacob’s shoulder from time to time when he gets the chance to. The pretty guy from before just stands in the corner of the room, wrapping his hands with his red wraps. He wonders if he’s ever going to see how hard that guy can punch, but briefly shrugs it off when Jacob’s mitt comes towards his head---one that he has to duck underneath for it to avoid hitting him in one of his scabbed over injuries from the last fight. 

The guy is built of tense muscle, skin stretched thin over sharp bones. His body is taut like a fighter as he moves, beautiful so. Sangyeon wonders if he’s new here. He’s never seen him around before---certain that with a face like his he’d be instantly recognizable in Sangyeon’s brain--not this early anyway, so he stares. Stares a lot, actually.

Sue him, you don’t get a lot of new faces to look at in the boxing ring, especially not new beautiful faces. 

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