He slept still feeling the rib.
Not pain. Something lighter. Like something reminding you that you were there.
The right shoulder too — less than yesterday. But still present.
6:00 AM. The black floor. The bag.
Baek Sung Chul pointed to the ring.
"Today — without Yoon. Alone with yourself. The worst opponent you'll face."
Alone in the ring.
No opponent. No strikes from angles he didn't know. Only the white lines on the black floor and a body moving in space.
The new stance — lower than usual. Centre of gravity lower. The way Yoon stood.
He hit the air.
The elbow — the movement still foreign to his body. Seven years of prohibitions are not forgotten in two weeks.
But they were receding.
Slowly. But receding.
On the fourth day — Yoon beside the bag. Watching.
After ten minutes:
"You think too much."
Ji Hun Min stopped the bag.
"How?"
"Before every strike — a small second. You think in it." Yoon approached. "In the official ring that second doesn't kill you. Here it does."
"And how do you stop thinking?"
"You don't." Yoon said it simply. "You make the thinking faster than the second."
"How?"
"You train until what you're thinking becomes instinct."
Ji Hun Min looked at the bag.
"How long does that take?"
Yoon looked at him.
"I don't know. I haven't gotten there yet."
The sentence fell quietly — a man who had trained here for two years and still knew exactly where he was on the road.
Ji Hun Min started hitting again.
The file had been on the table for seven days.
In the first match he had known beforehand — and fought one way. He wanted to know how to fight without knowing first.
On the seventh night he opened it.
Name: Oh Seung Min.
Age: thirty-five.
Criminal record: none. Nothing.
But below that — notes in small handwriting. Not official. Written by someone observing and recording.
Former boxer. National level. Retired four years ago. Reason: right knee injury not properly treated. Has been fighting in this world for a year and a half. His style is defensive — he drains the opponent and strikes when they weaken. His patience is exceptional. Lost only once — because of the knee.
Ji Hun Min read it twice.
Closed the file.
Right knee. Defensive style. Exceptional patience.
Lee Cheol Woo had attacked. Oh Seung Min waits.
The first fights you. The second makes you fight yourself.
He put the file on the table.
Looked at his hands.
On the tenth day — a knock at the door.
He wasn't expecting anyone.
He opened it.
Choi Yeon Ju.
A pale beige coat. A bag in her hand. Her eyes when they landed on him stopped for a second — on the left eyebrow. Still swollen after days.
Then she raised her eyes to his face.
"I came three times. You weren't here."
"I was out."
"At dawn?"
He didn't answer.
Choi Yeon Ju looked at him. A long look — not the look of a nurse assessing. The look of someone seeing what isn't being said.
She didn't ask.
"Come in."
She set the bag on the table. Took out food — kimbap. Set it down quietly. Took out chopsticks.
The movements of nurses who know that words won't add anything.
Ji Hun Min sat.
He ate.
In the room a silence that didn't need filling.
When he finished he put down the chopsticks.
Choi Yeon Ju sitting in the chair across from him. She hadn't eaten. Just sitting.
"You're not sleeping enough."
"I'm fine."
"I didn't say you weren't fine."
Silence.
Ji Hun Min looked at her.
In her face something that hadn't been there the first time — something resembling the worry that comes quietly when a person learns that shouting is no use.
"Why did you come?"
"Because I came three times and you weren't here."
"That's a reason to come a fourth time — not to sit."
Choi Yeon Ju looked at him.
Didn't answer.
She stood. Took her bag.
Before she reached the door — she looked at the file on the table.
Didn't ask about it.
But she saw it.
Ji Hun Min saw that she saw it.
He said nothing.
At the door she stopped.
Didn't turn.
"Ji Hun."
"Yes."
"Eat well."
She opened the door and left.
Ji Hun Min remained sitting.
The table in front of him. The file. And a cup of tea Choi Yeon Ju had left, still sending up faint steam.
Her last sentence — the same sentence his mother used to say.
He held the cup.
And drank.
Friday. 9:00 PM.
The building in the Gasan industrial district. The same from the outside.
Around the ring — the same dark chairs. The same people.
Ji Hun Min stood at the edge of the ring.
Baek Sung Chul beside him.
"The file — you read it?"
"Yes."
"The knee?"
"Yes."
"Don't go straight for it."
Ji Hun Min looked at him.
He had known this before it was said.
He didn't answer.
In the chairs — Han Jae Won. And beside him Kang Ha Eun. And in the far corner — Yoon.
He didn't look at them.
Across from him — Oh Seung Min.
Thirty-five. A body that said he had been a professional boxer. The way he stood weighted slightly to the left — something no one would notice unless they knew where to look.
Ji Hun Min knew.
But he looked away from the knee.
No referee. No bell.
Oh Seung Min didn't move first.
He waited.
Ji Hun Min didn't move either.
One second. Two.
Silence around the ring.
Then Oh Seung Min moved — slowly, with calculation. Pressing. Narrowing the space until Ji Hun Min had nowhere to retreat.
And when the space narrowed — a short strike into the left rib. Precise. A strike from someone who knows exactly where to hit.
Ji Hun Min bent.
The rib. The same place.
Oh Seung Min waited. He wanted him to carry the pain and tire.
Ji Hun Min regained his balance.
The right knee was there. He knew how to force it to move.
But he didn't go for it.
They closed again.
Oh Seung Min pressing. Ji Hun Min moving to the side — forcing Oh Seung Min to turn.
A left strike landed. Then a second.
Oh Seung Min pushed. Stepped back.
But Ji Hun Min didn't stop — he followed. For the first time in this match, going forward instead of back.
Oh Seung Min hadn't expected this.
Elbow strike to the right cheek.
Oh Seung Min stepped back two paces.
Ji Hun Min stopped.
Breathing. The rib still hurting. But still standing.
Two more minutes.
A match of patience — who reads the other more. Who tires first.
Oh Seung Min went down on both knees.
Baek Sung Chul's voice:
"Enough."
Ji Hun Min stood in the centre of the ring.
His hands at his sides. Breathing.
This time it wasn't pain he was feeling.
It was something quieter. Something resembling being fully present.
In the back corridor — Ji Hun Min removing the wrappings.
Footsteps behind him.
Oh Seung Min.
His face swollen on the right side. Standing with difficulty.
He looked at Ji Hun Min.
"You knew about the knee."
Not a question.
"You were watching it the whole time."
Ji Hun Min looked at him.
Didn't answer.
Oh Seung Min looked at him for a long time.
Then turned his back and walked.
A minute later — Yoon.
He came from the side. Stood beside him.
Silence first.
Then:
"Why didn't you use the knee?"
Ji Hun Min looked at the wrappings in his hand.
The answer was there — but he wasn't ready to say it aloud. Perhaps because he hadn't fully understood it himself yet.
He didn't answer.
Yoon didn't ask a second time.
He left the building.
The air cold and clean.
He walked in the street.
The rib with every step. He didn't stop.
In his head — Choi Yeon Ju's sentence:
Eat well.
And before it, months ago, his mother's:
Ji Hun, did you eat?
The two sentences didn't resemble each other. But they felt like the same thing.
He walked.