Chapter Text
The first time Baek-Jeong saw her, she was fighting ten men in a locked cage similar to the one he uses for the IKFC. He stumbled across this particular illegal fight one summer night while out scouting for some underground fighters not yet discovered by the scene.
He stayed for the fun because seeing a woman in an illegal fighting ring was a pretty rare thing to see, but then stayed because she won. She fought the ten men like it was a walk in the park.
His lips had turned real quick into that infamous devilish grin of his that always announced trouble. And Tae-Geom saw it, the way his boss’ eyes lit up and kept following her movements. Alan had therefore been tasked with finding out who she was, but had come back empty handed, and that intrigued Baek-Jeong even more.
He knew the smell of money in the duffle he presented her a few days later was what convinced her to follow him to Korea and do a few fights for him. But he’d be lying if he said he had to threaten her to stay by his side and do more fighting– bringing him more money because the viewers loved the novelty of a woman in a cage locked with someone twice her size.
She knew they were exploiting her, turning her into an animal in a zoo, a lamb caged with wolves, but she was paid, fed and housed in a pretty luxurious penthouse somewhere in Seoul. She wasn’t one to complain, she’d known harsher working conditions.
At least Baek-Jeong kept her under the radar, only broadcasting the live on the dark web, he had assured her no one could find them unless he decided so. And he didn’t know why but she had trusted him. She’d gotten close to Alan, playing video games together when there was nothing to do and the days were quiet.
She also befriended Tae-Geom, with whom she liked to train sometimes. He seemed to be the only one so far in the whole organisation to be at her level. Even Baek-Jeong was a level below, but she knew better than to say anything. The man had an ego and she didn’t want to piss him off. So far she was making good and easy money, but she knew it could change at any point. Baek-Jeong could get into a mood and decide the viewers weren’t betting enough money anymore on her, and decide to get rid of her.
She’d seen how he did it with previous fighters, snapping their neck and walking away all brooding, even more angry than when he’d entered the ring. And she liked to keep her neck as it was.
What she didn’t know, was that Baek-jeong had no intention of getting rid of her anytime soon. She was making him good money so far and he wanted to see how far she would go in this. And how far he could go, ever since he noticed she was not afraid of him. No matter what happened she never backed away from him, never lowered her eyes from him when he started getting angry, never cowered or shrunk in on herself like he saw so many men do in his presence.
He knew sometimes he was a loose canon and it made him impervisible to others, which he liked. Surprising your enemy was always a good thing, giving you an advantage.
But he felt like he could never really surprise her, never make her flinch, or scare her away. She always kept her eyes on his, not a single emotion crossing her features. It made him a little scared of her even though he would never admit that to anyone. If anything it made him more attracted to her, but he wouldn’t even allow himself to feel it, denying himself what his body and mind obviously felt.
It made her a little scary, sometimes, how she could keep her composure, remaining cool and collected even in stressful situations. He admired that quality a little. He thought maybe he would intimidate more people if he got his temper under control like her.
But his emotions were strong and he needed an output or he’d go crazy, so he had found boxing. And then violence, pure raw unfiltered violence in his underground fights. She saw it like his very own playground where he got to do anything he wanted with nobody to tell him no.
One night after a particularly long and exhausting fight in the cage, he emerged from the penthouse’s sliding window onto the massive terrasse for some air. His sleep had always been pretty bad; short nights, nightmares, exhaustion. He preferred to avoid sleep entirely when he could, which didn’t really help with his short temper.
That night, when he stepped out onto the terrace, he saw her on one of the outside chairs, a first aid kit laid on the table in front of her, squares of gauze and antiseptic soaked in blood laid out on the glass. She was laying back, her head tipped up toward the sky, a final gauze in one hand, but it seemed she’d gotten distracted.
The Seoul night air was significantly less hot at night, and he saw her rub her arms with her hands in an attempt to keep warm, her head still tilted back toward the ink black sky.
It’s like his body acted of his own, he realised, once he found himself a few paces away from where she sat. He noticed that she wasn’t looking at the sky as her eyes were closed now, her hair dancing around her face in the slow breeze.
“I can hear the gears in your head from here.” She’d spoken without moving from her position, head still tipped upward and eyes closed facing the stars. A small smile appeared on his lips as he heard her accent slip out under the exhaustion.
He huffed out a small laugh and shook his head while leaning against the railing of the terrace facing her, arms crossed and eyes on her.
“Are you staring at me?” She asked again with her eyes still closed. But at the lack of response from him she opened one to peer at him and then the other as she turned her head to look at him. Of course he was already staring right back at her. She smiled in a way that was far too innocent for someone in this kind of life and fists of steel.
Silently he walked toward her, sitting on the empty space next to her on the outside couch, and she had to turn to her side to keep looking at him, one leg tucked under herself. Baek-Jeong had one arm thrown over the backrest of the couch, his body angled toward her own, and his devilish grin still adorning his lips. She recognised this last detail as trouble on their way but still decided to stay and see what the story might bring.
For a few seconds that seemed to stretch in time and last longer, he just looked at her and the cuts and bruises covering the skin of her tattooed arms. A few cuts and bruises on her face as well. One of his hands came up to meet a strand of hair and push it back behind her ear, his fingertips brushing her cheekbone in the process. The contact felt nice, she hadn’t felt the touch of someone else in years. The only times someone had touched her it had been to hurt, punch or use her.
But not him, not right now. His hand lingered in the air, his fingers still grazing her cheek and she leaned into the touch. Soft caress against rough skin. She closed her eyes and let her head rest against the palm of his hand. The night around them silent like the world itself pressed the pause button to give them privacy. To make the moment last longer.
The gesture soft and silent but surprising. He hadn’t expected her to lean into his touch so easily, not even after months of being side by side for the IKFC, not after they’d started to warm up to each other. Because everyday upon waking up he tried to convince himself she was just an employee, a pawn in his big underground fight plans. A pawn he couldn’t deny the need to keep close to him.
Everytime he tried to convince himself that it was nothing; her lingering stares he often caught, the way she stayed by his side no matter what when talking to investors or potential fighters, the way she was ready to fight for him. He tried to convince himself she was just behaving like a normal person, doing the job she was paid for.
But each passing day, his resolve crumbled a little more and he felt his body in a new way, his mind losing grip on reality. His vision filled with dreams of a future an old version of him would’ve perhaps dreamed of every night.
He hid behind violence and anger, frustration piling up behind his dark stormy eyes, brow creased with tension. Everyone noticed how the blows he inflicted to his opponents were stronger, more violent, like he had unleashed something within himself lately. Tae-Geom worried a little, because he knew his boss was a loose wire and if something frustrated him so much as to unravel his anger on others then he needed to find what it was and fix it.
Baek-Jeong kept his entire body still, his eyes fixated on her face in his hand, her breathing slow and intentional. She was enjoying the moment, the stillness of it and the warmth emanating from him.
“You’re so warm.” was the only word that camee out of her, a little slurred from the exhaustion and it did something to his body, his breath itched, missing a beat and he had to force himself to keep his composure.
Without thinking Baek-Jeong shoved the threads of doubts and hesitation he felt lingering in his mind and shifted his hand so he could angle her face up toward his with his thumb on her chin, the rough skin of his hand so close to the soft flesh of her lips.
The movement made her open her eyes, already going away from his hand so he moved his fingers to the back of her neck before she could go too far, holding her in place as he approached his face. Right before their lips touched he saw her eyes darting down his face, her breathing missing a beat and finally her eyes closed as their lips met.
It was awkward for a second, he didn’t move and then closed his eyes and let himself revel in the moment, in the feeling of her soft mouth against his.
He moved and she followed, no question asked. The world tuned out around them, shivers erupted on her skin when the hand he had behind her neck squeezed a little there. Possessive in a nice way.
She moved her hands up his chest and onto his shoulders, up his neck, tangling with the hair at the base despite it being up loosely tied.
Their breathing intensified and he grabbed her hips to move her onto his lap, kissing her down her neck, biting down onto the soft skin there and kissing it again after. It didn’t feel like a first kiss, it felt like a reunion after a long time apart, it felt like a ritual lovers would have, hidden from the rest of the world on the rooftop of a hotel with no one around to disturb them.
When she woke up the next morning in his bed with one of his arms across her stomach she didn’t dare move, afraid everything would change right in front of her eyes as if it was just a dream. So she stayed very still next to him, his body heat radiating onto her and keeping her warm.
When he subconsciously moved his arm to bring her closer to him, squishing her to his chest and burning his nose in her neck while he slept, she let out an exhale and closed her eyes again. It wasn’t a dream. She wasn’t alone anymore. She hadn’t expected it but it had swooped her off of her feet and she really didn’t want to come back down.