CHAPTER 19

Excitement.

There was a bit too much excitement coursing through me. Baek had been quiet all the way back home, but once we reached he sat me down on the sofa and had the most serious talk with me.

"Rads, you must understand, what we did in that neighborhood was silly fight you know? Real thing is more dangerous, and can cause real hurt. There are bigger bets, meaning more money for the fighters, so they will be more forceful in hits too, more umm what that word.......... Yes! More ruthless. Rads I...." he put his head in his hands, a few minutes of silence before he spoke again,

"Rads I have seen people die on the streets as well. There is no rules in this, just raw fighting, beating and more beating until one person is knocked out. I know I gave you the offer myself to get into this and make a new life but, I don't want to loose you like this... Grace will not want to loose you like this. You have become part of us." He finished with a deep sigh.

I didn't know what to say. What to say to comfort him, to say to give him confidence, what to say to give myself the confidence. I knew that there would be risks, it won't be all flowers and balloons. I wouldn't just walk in, drop a guy and then walk out.

After the practice fights I'd had with Baek I knew that I could end up seriously injured, maybe even break a bone or two, but I also knew that I wanted it. I did not want to sit back home and clean and cook, I didn't want life this way.

I wanted control, I needed control and this was something that would give me control, I would pick and choose my fights, I would get to choose who gets to hurt me and who doesn't, I would get to control my own life.

And this exactly what I told Baek. He must have seen the sincerity of my words, the immense emotion behind them because he finally agreed to grant me my wish. He did put two conditions on me.

"So first. You come with me tonight and you watch. You do nothing else just watch me. Stand in corner and watch. No move only watch and..." he said.

"Yeah brother dear, I get the gist. I will stand like an obedient puppy on one side and just 'watch'. I promise"

"Second. Whenever you fight you tap out when you can't take more. No, I don't want to hear anything. You have no experience, no idea what actually happens. If you get in fight and it gets too much just pretend to be knocked out. Forget about winning or about some ego. Just give up.

Your life is more important and I have seen some dumb idiots lose theirs. Not gonna let you do the same mistake."

As soon as he said this I knew it was true. I knew he must've lost someone to the fight and it impacted him in ways he didn't want to show.

My Baek was a softy inside and I knew it.

The conditions were okay with me. I mean pretending to be knocked out for my own safety was absolutely fine, maybe even for Baek's sanity.

Wouldn't want to send the guy on a guilt trip now would we?

With this the conversation was over and the waiting period had begun, it wasn't too long but I felt like it lasted a millennia.

Before I knew it Grace was wishing Baek luck with a sweet kiss and taking a promise of safe return from him, we were both out of the house on our way to what Baek called a real 'Blood Arena'.

The route was different, it was darker and more unpleasant than the previous one I had been on, I knew we were not going back to the same neighborhood, this place would be different, the crowd would be different, the bets would be different, the stakes would be higher. We were again going towards Incheon but this time further than the neighborhood where I had my first fight.

This place was a mix between an abandoned factory space and a storage unit for the Port of Incheon.

“This was far from port so company don't use anymore, then seven years ago place caught fire, so been sealed since then” Baek explained.

We had taken his bike, a KTM to get here since it was a closed area and getting a taxi was not allowed for security reasons. Basically to keep the cops away. There wasn’t much of an issue with the cops though, the major 'benefactors' and 'investor’s' here were extremely influential and wealthy Asian men. A hierarchy was maintained just like in a typical joint-family business, passed on from father to son.

These benefactors gained a lot from these fights- money, using the place for drug buying, selling and storage, and most importantly the fighters themselves. If anyone needed a personal bodyguard, an assassin, a drug mule, a contract killer, even a hacker or forger, they were easily available here. These fighters were more than just beefy men throwing random punches around for money, it was a sophisticated system run by almost sophisticated men.

The 'Blood street' as it was called was made to look more like a 'Blood Arena'. People were bustling about everywhere, both men and women, mostly young adults and some middle aged men as well. Some heavily tattooed, some with different hair colors like red and purple and so on. Almost everyone looked like they’d been here before unlike me, a complete newbie.

“Don’t talk to anyone please and keep your mask on, I don’t want you getting into trouble yeah?” Baek said.

Yeah, as though anyone would even understand me, or rather I wouldn’t understand anyone even if I did try to talk. I didn’t dare voice my thoughts though, last thing I wanted was to piss Baek off.

“So everyone here fights or bets?”

“No, some men bring fighters and arrange fight, some men arrange bets, and women, they are either with fighters or they are here for money, they are prostitute’s”

Woah, okay I wasn’t expecting that. These people were running a brothel here too? Well they were also running drugs so I shouldn’t have been surprised, but no more women fighters?

“No women fighters?” I asked voicing my thought this time.

“Some time it happens, but mostly foreign women, not lot of Korean women into fighting scene.”

Okay then. I’m already the odd one out here. Just fantastic.

Without pondering over that thought too much I began looking around and started to observe the details of this place.

The outer area that we were in had a few empty storage units, that were now being used as a bar counter and drug selling set up. I finally did see some women with a note down the front of their tops. The place didn’t have much lighting, maybe to not draw too much attention, but they did have small born fire kind of arrangements at fixed interval’s, lot of people with alcohol filled glasses surrounding the said born fires.

As I was observing our surrounding, I saw Gorilla walking toward us with another man beside him. The other guy could’ve easily been a k-pop idol with the kind of looks he had, tall, really handsome with bubblegum pink hair. I’d say he was cute!

They started talking to Baek and as usual I barely understood. I did understand Korean a bit as long as it was spoken slow enough, but they were going at a rapid speed. Midway through their conversation they all looked at me and said something to each other, and then without any further explanation began talking about something else again. 10 mins later they both left me and Baek alone.

“They asked me who you were, and if you have come to fight.”

“So what’d you tell them?”

“Said you were my little sister, and you are here only to watch me. Gorilla will stand with you when I fight, he is my good friend, will keep you safe.”

“Thank you.” I said voice thick with emotion. He could’ve said I was a good friend or something. Sister, wow that was huge.

“What for? Its my duty to take good care of you. Remember? I had promised"

“Not for that, for telling them I was your sister"

“well I only said the truth. That's what I consider you now. I hope you don’t mind”

Oh I definitely did not mind. I couldn’t voice my appreciation and gratitude so I just gave him a super tight hug as a response. This feeling was so foreign, the feeling of belonging, of being wanted by someone, of being a part of someone’s life because they wanted me to be. It was a good different though. I liked it, no, I LOVED it. I didn’t get much time to ponder over this because Baek announced that we were now going in for his fight.

The inside area was actually pretty impressive. High ceilings of the factory had a few high power lights hanging from them, there were benches at the extreme ends of the area, a lot more people inside here than on the outside, a lot of noise, a whole lot of commotion.

Right in the middle was a huge cage. Yes! a freaking Cage. Big enough to hold maybe an elephant or maybe 2 elephants, the cage was also really tall with an open top, I could see a small gate being there for entry, that’s it. Apparently the fights happen in the cage, pretty obvious. I could also see a lot of money everywhere, and most of it were dollar’s and not Korean Won's, so I decided to ask Baek about this.

“Yeah I told you, bigger bets. Here people exchange their money for US dollars and fighter’s also get paid in dollars. For winning a match, basic you get 500$. If a fighter has big bets on him, or her in your case then winning fighter will get 200$ for every 1000$ collected in bet. And the fighter that will loose but will come out alive he will get 100$, like participation prize.” He explained.

Wow 500$!!!! That’s huge, and extra 200 bucks for every 1000$ bet money collected that’s awesome!! Its so cute that they even give consolation prize.

“Okay now I have to go up there and be inside the cage, there is gorilla behind that side of cage, you can see me well from there. Cheer for me okay? And please be safe, don’t give me tension in middle of fight” he said while giving a me a small smile.

“Don’t worry I’ll be right there and I won’t get into any troubles, I promise". I said with a wide smile of my own before I made my way towards our dearest Gorilla.

I had every intention of keeping that promise.

I swear I did.

But that’s the thing about promises isn’t it, some of them are just made to be broken.

Willingly or not but they do break.