Chapter Text
An overhead light flickered, it's pace increasing into a strobe, before ceasing altogether.
Kenan looked up from his desk, his brows furrowing as he watched the burnt filament glowing in a fading haze. Going, going.. gone.
Wrapping his hand carefully in the remaining lengths of medical tape, he pushed back his desk chair, letting out an irritable sigh as his eyes squinted, scanning the room. It took a few minutes for his eyes to adjust to the late evening dusk that had crept it's way into his room, settling on the pile of jeans wrapped around the leg of his bed.
He fumbled in the pockets, patting down each pocket multiple times, twisting them around before pulling out the almost empty lighter from his back pocket. He shook it, hoping the fluid was enough to be lit at least once. Click, click, click. No hope. Click. Definitely not.
He tossed the lighter over his shoulder, letting it hit the wall and skid under his desk.
Fuck.
Poverty is like an invasive parasite, intruding on every aspect of someone's life. Having to settle for a flat in the outskirts of the city, the kind of area that made grown men reverse as soon as they realised they made a wrong turn. The kind of place that made you sleep with a blade under your pillow, one hand holding it and the other arm wrapped around your torso protectively.
And when you can't even afford a place like that, it's like a slap in the face.
He had fought for this cramped flat, tooth and nail- quite literally.
It took 3 months of sleeping on friend's couches, the occasional bench when they would tell him with a sympathetic smile that they 'just couldn't today'. Those nights had him curled up on a bench with nothing but a limp blanket covering half of his body and the same blade concealed underneath. He had trained himself to keep his grip tight around it throughout the night, no matter how far he drifted into sleep.
3 months of grown men placing bets on him in the underground boxing club every Friday. When he would close his eyes in school the following Monday, he could still see their leering faces seared into the insides of his eyelids, and when the sounds around him faded into a muffle, the cheers and insults would intertwine, dancing in his eardrums like some kind of sick melody, cursing when he stayed on the canvas a little too long, clamours when he landed a punch hard enough to puncture his opponents lung.
Hell, he had even taken a stab to the abdomen for losing someone their precious money. The first match he had lost after a winning streak had him curled up in an alleyway, his nose crooked and bloody, with both palms compressed against his stomach. They had hit him on the back of the head with a brick as he limped to his bench spot, kicking his arms and legs, head and shoulders, everywhere. They spat at his limp body before delivering the closing stab. See you next week, they had laughed, leaving him to call the alleyway floor a bed for that night.
It was no life to live, but he was stuck with it anyways- t took one week a month to stay afloat for now at least. The people trusted him with their money, and he knew better than to play with their bets.
He remembered how one of his opponents were found last year, the Sunday following their match. They fished him out of the canal, with nobody to claim his body, as mangled and battered as it was. It was the very same parasite that was tailing Kenan, the one that made the police close his case as a suicide. He had heard about the autopsy the next week.
'They said every bone in his knuckle had been shattered. Bullet fragments found in almost all of them.' His expression steeled in the dressing room mirror, wrapping his wraps as he eavesdropped on the manager in the hallways, hushed tones as they discussed what the kid had gone through for losing what was just supposed to be a routine match under their roof.
Poverty had finally caught up with the poor guy, and sent him to his fate before moving onto the next victim.
He flopped down onto the bed, one arm pressed against his forehead. Tomorrow was Friday, and that was all he needed to get to sleep earlier. One more day.