They will never know what he's always known since the day he first watched his father in those fights.
They will never understand, because people hate what they don't understand and a princess will never understand how dragon fire thrums inside him, in the pit of his stomach, in the crevices of his heart, in the veins of his lungs, and in the blood of his veins.
How his fists thirst for battle and each time he steps into the arena his body shudders and his heart pounds faster and faster like the beat of some exotic, hellish melody.
How drunk he gets in victory and fire and rage and sorrow.
How his anger is like an inferno that roars and consumes him as soon as he locks eyes with his opponent.
Fighting was in his blood, his bones, in his very essence. It was his drug, his meaning to life.
The money was a bonus, of course, but it was inside those pits, beating and grabbing and punching and kicking and struggling for breath when he felt the most alive and he knew that this would forever be the love of his life: this life of warfare.
No one would understand and they would hate him as they tried to, so he didn't tell anyone.
And he knows that because no one will understand, no one can love him and he thinks this is fine, because he has only two loves in his life and that's good enough for him.
Fighting and his father's last gift to him: the only things he needed.
Then Miss Sohn tried to insert herself into that short list and his entire being, his entire life simply turned, looked at her, and asked incredulously,
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
It wasn't that she was a bad person.
Oh no, it was because he knew, in some instinctual part of his mind that concentrated solely on survival, that if she wants to become a part of him that he absolutely could not ignore, that if he let himself care even the slightest for her, he could no longer fight.
Because he knows, one day, he will die in those pits.
There will always be that one person who will beat him down into the mud and choke the life out of him.
That one person who can get past his defenses. That one person who will end his reign of glory.
He doesn't mind; if anything, he preferred to die in battle. It was, in his mind, the perfect way to go.
And when he dies, like the way he's always wanted to, he'll die with a smile on his face and joy in his heart.
But if Miss Sohn was added to the mix… she will be the one thing that will make him want to keep on living.
She will stop his battles without even the slightest regard that stopping them will make him hate her because she will never understand this love for battle and she will selfishly make him stay by her side, safe and sound and he, if he ever fell in love with her too, might just comply to her wishes, if only to make her stay by his side.
And that could never happen, for his happiness and hers, so he will keep her at arm's length and maybe even further, and he will never again let Miss Sohn bandage his bruised, bloodied hands because she was the gateway down another path, a dangerous path, and if he gave himself in, he could never go back.
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