Unholy!

The Disgraced One

Note: 17,5 years earlier

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„Shouldn't you be at home with your kid?"

Toji's fingers tighten around his beer bottle so faintly it's almost nothing, the kind of reflexive defensiveness most people would miss. Then he lifts the bottle and takes a long swig from it, eyes fixed on the fight right in front of his nose as though Kong has not spoken at all.

Feigning interest in the match is a good way to ignore the question.

The crowd roars around them, the air thick enough to chew it. Blood has already darkened the canvas in one corner from some earlier warm-up scuffle, and the stench of it hangs under the smell of alcohol, cigarette smoke, and sweat. People come to places like this to watch violence and call it sport. They come to forget their own lives by seeing someone else's life turned into a red mess in front of them and pretend they're just here for the competition.

Toji, at least, is honest about why he comes.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can feel Kong still looking at him for a few seconds longer. The man's stare clings to the side of his face with all the subtlety of an infected pimple on the ass: annoying, and impossible not to be aware of even without directly looking at it.

In the end, the man in the suit abandons the interrogation, realizing he won't get an answer out of Toji in this lifetime. Instead, he slips a cigarette straight from the pack between his teeth, shrugs one shoulder in bored surrender, and mutters, „Whatever", while patting down the other pocket of his jacket in search of his lighter.

Toji is grateful he doesn't keep digging. Grateful the way one is grateful for a knife not quite reaching the artery.

„Yeah, man, fuck him up properly!", he bellows toward the ring, much more because he wants to drag Kong's attention (or maybe his own) away from that last thought than because he actually gives a shit about the fight.

The winner is obvious anyway.

Even a blind man could call it by the middle of the second round. One of the fighters still has rhythm in him, the other one is already stumbling around on borrowed time, trying to look tougher than his body can manage.

After two more rounds, it's decided, and the loser is dragged out of the ring, while the crowd makes the usual noises people make when someone else's pain has temporarily improved their evening.

After that first fight of the night, when the fight break is called to give the floor boys time to wipe blood from the mat, Toji leans back against the ropes, and holds out one hand toward Kong.

Kong glances at the outstretched hand, squinting. „Seriously?"

Toji flexes his fingers once in silent answer.

With a theatrical sigh, Kong fishes the cigarette pack out of his coat and slaps it into Toji's palm. „Since when did you start smoking again?", he asks, and Toji knows exactly what he is really getting at. Kong has never been smart enough to be subtle, and sometimes that is more irritating than if he just came out and said what he means.

It doesn't matter, though. Toji has no interest in indulging him.

He taps one cigarette free with his thumb, puts it between his lips, and lights it with his own lighter, mumbling, „Since today."

He is definitely not going to stand here with Kong picking apart his life like some fucking therapist. This man can take his curiosity and stuff it somewhere medically interesting.

Kong sniffs once, then turns his attention back to the ring. Toji does the same, forearms resting on the barrier now, cigarette hanging loose from the corner of his mouth while one of the workers kneels to scrub at the canvas with a rag that turns red almost instantly.