On the day he thought was the second — or the third — he opened the refrigerator.
Cans of tuna. Two eggs. A water bottle half empty.
He took the water. Drank standing at the window. The building opposite three metres away — its curtain drawn. He didn't know if anyone was behind it. He didn't care.
He went back to the bed.
The phone on the floor beside him. The screen lighting and going dark — numbers he didn't know. Numbers he did know. Messages from journalists; he read one word from each and closed them.
He put the phone face down.
The silence in the apartment had a different weight from the silence of the hospital and the silence of the gym and the silence of corridors — this was the silence of a place that knows you and asks nothing of you.
Sometimes that kind is the hardest.
"Ji Hun. Sleep well."
He closed his eyes.
After a day — or two — he looked at his hands.
The white wrappings still on them. He looked at the white that hadn't been stained in that ring. He took them off. Rolled them up. Threw them away.
His hands without wrappings for the first time in longer than he could remember.
Just two hands. The knuckles, the small scars, the palm that had taken the brown envelope and hadn't trembled.
He put them on the floor.
And stayed looking.
When the phone lit up that night, it was neither a number nor a name he knew.
Three letters only: HJW
KakaoTalk.
He opened it without deciding he would.
HJW:
Ji Hun Min.
I know you're not answering anyone right now.
That's fine. Just read.
He closed the phone. Put it face down.
The damp stain in the left corner of the ceiling had grown larger.
Who has this number?
He found no answer. He closed his eyes.
On the day he thought was the sixth, he ate.
A can of tuna with a spoon, standing at the kitchen counter without sitting. He ate without tasting. Washed the spoon. Put it back in the drawer.
The phone lit up.
HJW:
Your last match against Li Jun Song — second round, minute seven, forty-seven seconds.
You saw the opening. You saw it clearly.
But you extinguished something.
I saw that thing you extinguished.
And I'm the only one who saw it.
Minute seven, forty-seven seconds.
Li Jun Song's left arm slightly raised. The chin exposed. One second would have been enough. He knew this. His whole body had known this.
But who knows that moment exactly?
He closed the phone slowly.
His right thumb began to wrap around his left — an old nervous habit.
He stopped when he noticed it.
In the night — whichever night — the phone lit up again.
HJW:
Room thirty-seven.
The pale blue curtain.
She used to leave the television on the news in the morning.
Because the silence in the hospital is heavy in its own particular way.
Isn't it?
He got up from the bed.
Room thirty-seven. The pale blue curtain. The television in the morning.
No one knows this.
He walked to the window. Looked at the street below.
A man standing at the lamppost. A dark coat. His eyes fixed on nothing.
Ji Hun Min remained at the window for thirty seconds.
When he looked again — the man wasn't there.
He held the phone. Looked at the symbol — HJW.
He didn't reply.
But he didn't delete the message.
Time passed in a measure he had stopped keeping.
Then the last message came.
HJW:
You have seven days to reply.
After that I won't intervene in what the federation decides.
And what the federation decides — you know.
But if you reply:
The suspension becomes one year only.
And after the year — you come back.
But not to what you were.
To something entirely different.
I don't sell empty promises.
I sell results.
Think carefully, Ji Hun Min.
You have never lost a real match in your life.
Don't let this be the first time.
He closed the phone.
He stood in the middle of the room in the dark.
The sentence stayed.
Twenty matches. Twenty wins. He had only lost when he decided to — when he placed his mother above everything else.
He looked at his hands in the dark.
No wrappings.
Then he looked at the door.
He left.
He didn't take his jacket. He didn't take anything.
He walked. Without direction.
Until he found himself in front of the gym.
The door closed. The lights off.
In the dark glass of the door his face was reflected.
And behind his face — the empty gym. The bag in its place. The dark red rubber floor. The unlit ring at the centre.
Seven years in this place.
He took out his phone. Opened the last message.
His fingers above the screen.
One second.
Two.
Three.
He typed one word. Sent it.
Ji Hun Min:
When?
He closed the phone. Put it in his pocket.
He looked at his reflection in the glass one more time.
Then he turned his back to the gym.
And walked.