8 is fate // Stray Kids

6

Changbin

"Why are we here?", Changbin didn't receive a reply from Jeongin. Instead, the younger kept dragging him through the crowd of people, only stopping to buy them snacks and drinks.

"Can you please give me an answer?", Changbin tried again as they sat down in their seats.

"I don't know – what could we possibly be doing here?", Jeongin laughed as he looked around pointedly.

"Okay, but why am I here?"

"Cause I didn't want to go alone and you're the only one who's free", Jeongin's sweet and innocent smile was nothing but an illusion, that's what Changbin realized while looking at his friend.

"You know, when you said that we should go out and do something fun, I didn't expect this to be your definition of fun. I never knew you were into watching people kill each other."

"Don't be ridiculous, killing is against the rules. It only happens accidentally at times."

"Oh I'm sorry, my mistake", Changbin rolled his eyes.

"Can you please give this a chance?", asked Jeongin. "I'm sure you'll like it more than you'd expect. It was the same for me."

"You'd better be right", defeated, Changbin leaned back into his chair. "Who's fighting?"

A satisfied grin spread on Jeongin's lips. "It's the Wolf Spider versus the Bloody Demon."

"Aah, I see", he mockingly nodded, causing Jeongin to giggle.

"The Wolf Spider is a well-known fighter in this arena, the Bloody Demon on the other hand, is new. It's his first fight here, I heard he quickly climbed ranks at multiple arenas before this one. But get this: he's rumored to be a human. Can you believe that?"

Changbin could indeed not believe this. A human fighting against supernatural beings? That sounded impossible. But maybe he was being biased and prejudiced. The only human he had met was a soft and fragile boy. Just thinking of Han fighting in an arena like this made him feel sick.

"Don't you think that's cruel?"

Jeongin shrugged. "I don't know. Even if he's human, he must be strong if he got this far. This is the highest-ranking arena in the country, you won't get recruited if you lack talent. Though I think it's brutal to let him fight the Wolf Spider in his first match, that guy is anything but an easy match."

Someone sat down to Changbin's left, but he was too focused on his friend to notice. He still had a hard time wrapping his head around this.

"I heard he gets certain advantages though", continued Jeongin. "His armor and mask are enforced with magic. Through this, the damage he receives will be put into proportion. I also heard that he gets time to prepare for every fight. He gets access to recordings of his opponents' old fights and he's also allowed to visit the national library as often as he wants to – not quite sure what the advantage of the last one is supposed to be though."

Before the two could continue to dive any deeper into the topic, the voice of the announcer echoed through the arena. 

"In the north, we have our master of the deadly poisons, our veteran. Give it up for the Wolf Spider!"

An eruption of claps, stomping and cheering followed the announcement as a figure stepped onto the battleground.

He was tall and muscular, his dark skin was covered in white patterns which stretched from his shaven head down to his bare upper body.