A Scorching Day Chapter 5

“More, more. Joon-hyung, stop defending and break through! Keep your distance. Ki Joon’s already reading your tempo! Don’t drop your head! Short uppercut coming in, block it!”

The coach’s urgent voice boomed across the ring.

Huff, huff. The opponent’s body, gasping for breath as if dying, was already half-crumbled. The rash guard clinging to his body, soaked in sweat, tightened even more around him. The breath of raw bodies colliding heated the ring intensely.

Ki Joon’s eyes sparkled through his headgear. The rising excitement pleasantly spurred his heart on. An exhilarating vitality spread heavily from the center to his extremities, from head to toe, in time with his heartbeat. Seeing Ki Joon purely enjoying himself, the opponent’s face twisted with frustration.

“Arrgh!”

With a low shout, the opponent charged in. He aggressively tried to fight inside, but having tired out, he was much slower than before.

Ki Joon’s disgustingly solid durability and stamina likely also contributed to deflating the opponent’s morale. Even after countless hits, he took them without significant damage—his heavy body remaining relaxed throughout, as if daring him to keep pushing.

After taking a certain amount of incoming blows, Ki Joon slowly began to create distance. His tall body moved nimbly. The moment the opponent tried to rush in, Ki Joon lowered his upper body and hooked inside sharply. Quickly wrapping one of the opponent’s thighs, he pushed through and broke his balance.

Thud. Joon-hyung’s body collapsed onto the mat. Completely exhausted, he didn’t even think about getting back up and called out the tap. The coach threw a towel toward his students.

“Good work.”

“Whoa… shit… huff… huff…”

Joon-hyung was too winded to even form proper sentences. While he lay sprawled out gasping, Ki Joon took off his headgear and picked up his water bottle. Clear drops of sweat flew from his soaked hair. As he gulped down the sweet, delicious water, his sweat-soaked throat bobbed continuously.

“Hey, Joon-hyung. Let’s go one more round.”

“Huff, I, I almost blacked out, ugh…”

Joon-hyung, unable to finish his sentence, twisted his body in pain. With barely alive hands, he struggled to remove his headgear and flopped back down onto the mat.

“Ah, Coach… I can’t do any more with that bastard…”

“Tch, look at your stamina, really. You have to hold on. You think you can compete in a match like this?”

“Coach knows too. Even if you search the whole country, there’s no monster like that…”

Joon-hyung was someone he’d trained with in the same gym for years and sparred countless times. They were similar in weight and height, but every time they faced off, he had never once beaten Ki Joon.

Ki Joon grinned and grabbed his hand to pull him up.

“Hyung, are you okay?”

“Get lost, you crazy bastard.”

My whole body feels like, what, a rock… Joon-hyung kicked at his ankle as if whining, and Ki Joon dodged quickly and grinned again. Annoyed by his smiling face, Joon-hyung suddenly swept his legs—and this time, Ki Joon fell over easily with a thud.

With a thump, Ki Joon fell and immediately wrapped his arm around Joon-hyung’s neck, as if he’d been waiting for it. The muscles in his firm forearm, joyfully cutting off the opponent’s airway, bulged and stood taut.

“Kek… kkeok… ta-tap, tap, tap, tap.”

The moment Ki Joon chuckled and released the pressure, a thoroughly irritated Joon-hyung lunged at him again. Rolling over and under each other, fighting like wrestling lion cubs—the coach watched his students and chuckled. It was a full five minutes later that the two sweat-soaked bodies finally separated completely.

“Hyung, want to go another round?”

“Get lost!”

After the long bout of messing around, Joon-hyung, lying there panting, shuddered. He grinned slyly and threw a sweat-soaked towel at the laughing Ki Joon. Ki Joon easily caught the towel and smiled brightly. Deep dimples formed on both cheeks as an innocent smile spread across his face.

As he threw off the sweat-soaked rash guard, his intimidatingly built upper body was revealed. Muscles, pumped up to the max from the intense exercise, rippled fiercely with each movement. On his sweat-glistening wrist, a black rosary bracelet rolled with a soft clack.

Ki Joon opened his sports bag, took out a fresh t-shirt and put it on, then zipped up a hoodie over it. He changed out of his shorts into training pants, and in an instant, he was neatly dressed, as if he hadn’t just been rolling around in the ring.

“Well then, I’ll head in now.”

“Yeah, look at the time already. See you tomorrow.”

“Hyung! Get home safe. Spar again tomorrow?”

“Seriously, get lost…”

Ki Joon kept chuckling as he watched Joon-hyung weakly extend his middle finger while lying down. His steps were light as he slung his bag over his shoulder and left the dojang.

It was about two bus stops home. It was past 11, so he hesitated for a moment, but since he was already fired up, he wanted to do some more cardio and decided to run. Ki Joon tied his shoelaces tightly and began to jog lightly.

In March, the still-chilly night air cooled his body, which then pleasantly heated up again. The vitality circulating through his body was welcome. Breathing rhythmically, he jogged at a steady pace. Running along the long main road for a while, then turning beside the convenience store led to a familiar alley.

From here on, it was a residential area. When he told school kids his address, they’d always say things like “Wow, your family must be rich.” The alley, sparsely lined with large mansions, was very quiet at this hour.

Stopping in front of his house, Ki Joon quietly opened the door and went inside. As always, the garage was empty.

“…”

He looked up slowly at the lonely-standing two-story mansion. It was completely dark except for his room on the second floor and the first-floor kitchen, which were brightly lit.

As soon as he entered the front door, he headed straight to the second floor. His heart quickened as he went toward the ball of fluff that would be waiting for him alone in his room.

“Sunny.”

Meow—. The cat answered with a long cry and leaped down from the cat tower. Seeing the adorable ball of fur approach lightly, roll at his feet, and rub against him, Ki Joon smiled deeply.

“Did you behave? What did you do today?”

“Meow—”

“Sorry. Were you bored all day? The workout ran a little long.”

After petting the gray cat, which purred loudly, for quite a while, he headed to the first-floor kitchen. On the dining table was kimchi fried rice that the housekeeper had prepared and left for him. Seeing the heaping mound—about three servings’ worth—wrapped in plastic wrap, his appetite roared to life.

Washing only his hands, he sat down at the table immediately. He’d barely taken a few spoonfuls when the plate was empty in no time.

Scrape— He pushed his chair back and stood up, glancing toward the kitchen. The housekeeper, who knew well that his appetite, already hearty, became especially voracious after exercise, had thankfully also cut up a large amount of fruit.

After devouring all the assorted fruits as well, Ki Joon finally walked out of the kitchen at a leisurely pace. He left the first-floor lights on and entered the bathroom. The silence of the mansion was eerily dead, so he turned up loud music and showered. The noisy rock music, undrowned by the sound of water, boomed through the bathroom.

After finishing his shower, Ki Joon walked out naked, dried himself off, and sat on the edge of the bed. The cat, which had been sitting there, slowly approached and meowed— acting cute. Ki Joon reached out his long arm and picked up the fishing rod toy.

“Alright. Alright. Faster!”

“Meowrk!”

“Ya, you think you can catch it moving that slow? Huh? I can see all your tempo right now. Faster, faster, faster!”

Imitating the coach’s stern tone, he whipped the mouse toy around wildly, and Sunny went into a frenzy charging at it. Leaning back on the bed diagonally, Ki Joon happily swung the toy around, but eventually got a long scratch mark on his side and finally stopped the game.

“Ya, you, damn. Anyway, you always draw blood when you get excited.”

Though he grumbled out loud, his hands petting the cat’s face were endlessly gentle. The cat, which had been riled up until moments before, responded to its owner’s touch with cheeky little punches. Even that was funny and trivial, so Ki Joon just chuckled.

He got up abruptly and carelessly wiped the bleeding skin with a tissue. Bruises and contusions were par for the course anyway, since he’d get them from running and rolling around at the dojang. He took out underwear and a t-shirt, put them on, and flopped onto the bed in just his boxers.

“Sun, Sun, Sunny.”

As he stroked the scruff of the purring ball of fur, Ki Joon suddenly let out a snicker.

“Hey, you know. There’s a kid in our class who looks like you?”

“Meow—.”

“He looks similar, and he acts similar, too.”

As he spoke, the kid’s face naturally came to mind. Skin as white and soft-looking as flour dough, with almond-shaped, slightly sharp eyes. Red lips as if tinted with something.

There was something different about him from other guys. Ki Joon pondered what it might be for a moment and lightly scratched the back of his damp head. It was hard to explain exactly what was different… but anyway, it was just so.

About three days ago, during lunch, he’d been dozing face-down on his desk when the noise got loud enough to wake him. Hearing voices saying “Sunny” this and that, he was thinking about his cat and sitting up groggily when a stream of filthy curses annoyed him.

Wondering what was going on, he turned around and saw some burly, rough-looking guy built like a bear picking on a kid much smaller than him. Pestering a kid who looked like he’d collapse with a single tap, it was ridiculous. The moment Ki Joon scowled, that tiny kid threw a punch at the bear-like guy’s face.

Ki Joon blinked, wondering what he had just witnessed. The little one had some serious guts. There was quite a size difference.

But the punch itself was negligible. So much so that he doubted it could have dealt any damage to that big guy. The feistily upturned eyes and the heaving small chest reminded him exactly of Sunny when she bared her claws.

When the bear-like brute grabbed the small kid by the collar and struck him, Ki Joon felt his mood sour. It was a displeasure born from a strong sense of injustice.

To be honest, there was no reason for the fights boys got into in the classroom to be fair. It wasn’t like they were fighting in the ring, so there was no reason to match weight classes either.

And besides, how other kids fought was none of his business in the first place. Moreover, he himself had resolved not to get into fights anymore and had transferred here practically driven out. He knew better than anyone that such meddling would lead to troublesome situations.

Especially if the opponent was the pathetic type who’d try to boost his ego by manhandling a scrawny kid like that—there was a high chance the bastard would pick another fight to restore his trampled pride in front of the others.

And yet.

‘Hey. Too loud.’

Seeing that kid with a pitifully red handprint on his white face, Ki Joon once again chose to get tangled up in an annoying affair. It was a somewhat impulsive move, but he had no regrets.