"I don't do shit halfway, sweetheart. You step in my flames, you'll burn to ashes!"
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The Kings of the underworld are in a bit of a predicament; their rule over the city is challenged as an old enemy...
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It takes a long time to grow an old friend. ~ John Leonard ________________
His muscles flexed as he delivered what was known as one of his lethal blows to the red boxing bag, sending it flying across the room. His perfectly sculptured body was visible under the thin fabric of his white shirt. Perhaps it had also something to do with the sweat. The boxing bag swayed back and forth trying to go back to its original stillness but before it could manage, Hoseok jumped once more, kicking it in the same spot he had before, this time with his right foot.
The poor thing ricocheted again and his assaulter didn't ease up one bit.
Landing gracefully on his two strong feet, just like a cat jumping from a small surface, he gave the bag a few seconds of peace. The next time he attacked he gave it all he had. There was no rest for neither of them then, his blows were harsh, swift and precise; the three things that made the Bangtan's trainer so lethal.
Yet the girl standing in the half opened door knew all too well that this was just a warm up routine. Little has changed in his practices, regardless how many years passed them by. Even the clothes remained pretty much the same. She remembered the grey athletic shorts he was wearing, his sister had gotten them for him when he was still into dancing.
She watched as his moves became more intense and complicated, yet he did them with such ease some would think he was taking a walk in the park.
Hoseok was all about comfort and efficiency when it came to fighting. She remembered their training sessions as if not a day had passed, he would drill it in her head again and again that you had to be comfortable and let the moves come to you, in order to defeat the enemy.
It's like dancing, he used to say. Imagine a dancer coming up with new moves for a choreography; he listens to the beat of the music and adjusts his moves accordingly. Just like he listens to the tempo and the genre of the music, a good fighter must listen to the body language of the opponent and adjusts the right blow at the right time to the right place. It's exactly like dancing!
A nostalgic smile spread on Ashley's lips at the memory. She mused about better times watching her childhood friend deliver accurate punches on the enemy in the form of the boxing bag.
Her mind wondered to another time, when things were much simpler, when they all fought to overthrow the injustice system rooted deep in the rotten roots of Seoul, running around its streets with cheap clothes and expensive dreams. Dreams that would cost them lives of people they loved, the lives of their enemies and would certainly cost them their own souls in the end.
Ashley remember the abandoned train station where they would secretly meet to plan the next drug bust or dirty cop they would bring to Justice. What Bangtan had done here was really a miracle, but taking into account all they've lost, it was more a curse than anything else.
