Chapter Text
Mark often wonders where his life would have taken him if he was the kind of person who really thought things out properly before he followed through with an action. As it stands, he’s had twenty-three years of mostly gut-feel and only hindsight to get him through the majority of his decisions.
He worries that his appearance might throw someone off. The stitches over his right eyebrow are still healing, and his broken nose has set for the most part, but all the swelling and the pain have left. He’s got his glasses on, his contact in his bag just in case this doesn’t pan out, and chances are, they won’t, considering that the way he looks right now doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence.
As he pulls open the steel door and finds himself faced with a narrow, dark stairway, he ponders the very real possibility that this might end in disappointment or him being turned away because they’re too full or something, but he’s a little desperate, and he’d made it all the way to this part of town already, so he might as well bite the bullet really, and shoot his shot.
There’s a lone fluorescent light at the top of the stairs that lights Mark’s way as he climbs up. To his left, there are black and white posters of boxers he barely knows. Ali is frozen in time, his left fist making contact with someone whose name Mark can’t recall.
His heavy gym bag digs into his right shoulder so he adjusts the strap a little to change up the positioning before it throws him off balance. It makes him wince-- the bruise he’d sustained on his ribs after his last goddamn fight hasn’t healed properly yet, and it’s taking longer than usual for it to go from black to yellow.
Mark’s legs are starting to ache, and these stairs aren’t helping much. He’d walked nearly twenty blocks to get here so that he didn’t have to spend anything on the bus fare. It’s not like he’s got much planned for the day anyway. His next shift at the diner is still tomorrow yet.
When Mark reaches the landing, he finds that it leads to a short hallway, with a concrete floor and grimy windows above the wall to his left, through which sunlight filters in, dust dancing in his vision. The sound of a timer goes off loudly, and there’s chatter. Mark can hear chains rattling, and what is undoubtedly someone working the speedball. Heavy rap music fills the hallway as he makes his way through it.
The hallway ends with a blue door that gives easily under Mark's gentle push. He's hit with the strong scent of sweat and the smell of leather. It's not exactly pleasing, but it is significantly more bearable than the mass of body odor he'd been surrounded with when he'd be bare-knuckling his way through his fights in the circuit.
The Seo Gym is small by most clubs’ standards, but he finds it filled with a handful of people. A boy with blond hair has positioned himself in front of the mirror at the far end of the room doing side-swing cross-overs so fast, Mark can barely see the rope. In the ring, a girl with her hair in a high ponytail and a vicious expression on her face throws a jab into the boxing mitts being held up by a trainer with wild, white hair and too many earrings on for it to be legal.
There are other people paired off, training with their partners. One of them glances Mark’s way but then goes back to beating the fuck out of the heavy bag that looks like it’s being held together with duct tape.
To Mark's left is a wall that's covered in posters and flyers printed out from older fights, names jumping out to him from both local and international fights on tattered pink and yellow paper. Lockers, six across and six down, stand in front of the wall, some of the doors ajar, some others locked with small bolts.
It’s when he looks to the right that he finds what he’s looking for, a small office, and in it, the man he’d come to see: John “Johnny-cal” Seo, four-time middleweight boxing champion of the world, originally slated to represent the USA in the Olympics before a broken collarbone and shoulder injury fucked up all his chances of both the gold and the glory, as well as every other pro boxing opportunity left.
The man is visible through the glass which looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in probably months, and Mark’s struck by just how much more handsome Johnny is in person than he is in the videos Mark had watched of him before deciding to try his luck here. Mark steels himself and then walks forward to rap gently on the open door, making Johnny look up from the laptop he’s working on.
Mark clears his throat, tongue suddenly stuck to the roof of his mouth when he sees the eyebrow piercing glint in the fluorescent light overhead. Jesus fucking Christ, get it together, Mark thinks.
“Hi, I--Hello, Mister Seo,” Mark starts, holding onto the strap of his gym back to ground him. “My name is Mark Lee, a friend of Moon Taeil’s. I was wondering if you’d maybe have space to take me on in your gym.”
Johnny’s expression changes from confused to curious in a split-second.
“Moon Taeil?” Johnny says incredulously. “Holy shit, I haven’t heard that name in ages. Come in man, take a seat. And shut the door if you can. Yuta always blasts his fucking music too loud.” Johnny gestures with his hand to the monoblock chairs positioned in front of his desk.
Mark’s thighs groan when he lowers himself into the seat, but his shoulder creaks in gratitude. He hadn’t known if he’d be allowed in or not, but he figured it was worth the shot to bring whatever he had with him just in case he did.
“So, Mark Lee,” Johnny says, like he’s testing the name out in his mouth and committing it to memory. “How do you know my old trainer?”
"I fight in the underground circuit," Mark says, knowing full well that he isn't built like a fighter, and that that's surely what Johnny is thinking about at the moment, but the state of his face will give him away. "He hangs out there a lot, helps the other guys out. Treats us, mostly, as a makeshift medic. Sometimes he'll throw me a bone and give me some tips of his own."
“Underground circuit, huh?” Johnny says, his eyes bright, his eyes sliding over to the stitches on Mark’s eyebrow. “You know your way around a fight then. What brings you here?”
Mark clenches his fists in his lap. He doesn’t want to think about his last fight too much or the way his mother had cried while she held his hand in the emergency room.
“I’m a good fighter, sir,” Mark says, sitting up in the seat, jutting his chin out. “It’s what I’m good at--it always has been. After one of my fights, Taeil had pulled me aside to tell me that I was wasting away on the chump-change matches I was getting involved in. Told me I had too much talent to let it go to waste nearly killing myself every other week.”
Mark takes a breath.
“I think he’s got too much faith in me, but I figured I would try my luck anyway,” Mark says, looking Johnny square in the eye. “There’s a tournament coming up in a couple of months and that championship money would go a long, long way for my family and me.”
Mark wonders if Johnny’s pieced together that the real reason why he’s here is that it’s the only gym that Mark can afford to train in. Every other club’s fees would bleed him dry.
Johnny watches him carefully like he’s trying to read something on Mark’s face.
“We don’t train pro-fighters here, Mark,” Johnny says softly. “Too much ego, too much attitude, too much on the line for them. I’m sorry.”
Mark feels his gut twist, his fears coming to light as he feels his chances slipping through his fingers.
“I’m not a pro-fighter!” Mark says a little too loudly. “I--Sorry. I’m sorry. I just. I need a place to train, and maybe a trainer. Whether I win or not is beside the point right now, Mister Seo--”
“Please, call me Johnny,” Johnny says holding a hand up. “Mark, the people who train here aren’t training to win matches, although Yeri over there certainly fights like she is,” Johnny continues, nodding to the girl still in the boxing ring. “I just don’t know if training here is going to carry you to that championship you want.”
“Johnny, please,” Mark cuts in, and Johnny holds his gaze. “I’ve got no money, no ego, and nowhere else to go. I’ll listen, I’ll do everything. I just need someone to take a chance on me.”
Johnny runs his hand through his hair. “I don’t even know you,” he says. “But you’ve got this look in your eye that tells me that you’re not leaving here until you get a yes.”
“My teachers always told me I was headstrong,” Mark replies, shrugging before shoving his hands into his joggers.
“So why underground fighting?” Johnny throws back. “Why didn’t you wrestle your way into college then, if you’re so ‘headstrong’?”
Mark scuffs his beat-up Chuck Taylors on the concrete floor.
“Do I look like I can afford higher education to you, Johnny?” Mark asks. “Average grades, average life, medical bills, single mom, baby brother. There’s a lot riding on me being able to get food on the table.”
Mark glances at the laptop still open in between the two of them. Old Macbook Pro model, covered up in stickers. Papers stacked in neat piles all over the table. Some frames are faced away from Mark so he can’t see what’s in them.
Johnny leans back in his seat, some beat-up office chair that doesn’t look all that comfortable. The chair squeaks as Johnny reclines. He sees Johnny give him a once-over.
“Okay,” Johnny says finally. “Look, this place is not glamorous at all, and I don’t know what kind of fighter you are in the streets, but we don’t play by street rules here. I know it takes a certain kind of anger to last any sort of time out there, and if you bring that here, you’re out. Do you understand?”
Mark sits up in the chair, his heart beginning to race.
“I understand,” Mark says, excitedly, before his face falls. “I--I don’t actually know how much your fees are--”
“Do you have a job?” Johnny asks bluntly.
“I work the diner near my place every other night,” Mark says. “I’ve been trying to pick up more shifts but--”
“It’s alright,” Johnny says lightly. “How do you feel about maybe just sprucing up the place while you’re here, and that’ll serve as your training fee for the time being?”
Mark’s jaw drops.
“Th-that’s it?” Mark says before he can reel the words in. What the fuck? Nowhere else in this city, or in the states over, would he be able to find a boxing gym to train him for free.
“You say that’s it but wait until you’re faced with the bathroom, man,” Johnny laughs. “It’s no cakewalk but I’m willing to let you train here if you follow my rules and keep the place clean. My old guy ended up having to move away cos of family shit and I do the cleaning myself most days.”
Mark feels on the verge of tears. He doesn’t have the right words, but he tries anyway.
“Thank you,” Mark says, his voice thick. “Thank you, Johnny.”
“You can thank me by showing me what you’ve got, Mark,” Johnny says pleasantly. “I don’t mind it at all. My cousin comes here all the time for free, others pay what they can when they can, and others pay full. But like I said, you’re gonna have to temper your expectations here, man. This really isn’t a pro boxing gym.”
“It will be, once I score that championship,” Mark says, putting up a smile he hopes seems more confident than he feels right now under Johnny’s scrutiny.
“Hah! Cheeky,” Johnny says, laughing. “We’ll see about that.”
Johnny rises from his seat and makes his way to the door before glancing over his shoulder. “Looks like you brought all your gear. Do you wanna check the place out now? I can introduce you to the gang if you want.”
Mark feels his hands clam up a bit, but he’s not about to let any chance slip by so he nods, and heaves his bag over his shoulder to follow Johnny out of the small office.
“You can leave your bag here, or in the lockers, it’s up to you,” Johnny says, gesturing to one of the wooden benches near the water fountain. “Our lockers don’t have any fancy codes or anything so you’ll have to bring your own padlock if you wanna leave shit overnight, but it’s generally safe here. Everyone’s good, you don’t have to worry about shit getting stolen, which is probably more than what you can say about the places you’re used to, huh?”
Mark smiles sheepishly, thinking about how he only ever goes to his fights with a couple of bucks and a shirt to change into.
“I’ll wait for the lockers, if that’s cool,” Mark replies.
“Sure man, anything goes.”
The timer goes off again, three loud, short dings before Johnny leads Mark up on to the ring. The trainer sets his boxing mitts on the floor of the ring and holds onto the boxing glove of the girl who had been beating the shit out of the focus pads earlier.
“Yuta,” Johnny says, catching the trainer’s attention. “We’ve got fresh blood joining us.”
Yuta pulls off the Velcro from the girl’s black gloves, and then pulls the glove off her hand, repeating the motion for the other, before he turns his attention to them. Johnny’s leaning on the ropes that dip under his weight before he rights himself again and claps Mark on the back once.
“Nakamoto Yuta, this is Mark Lee,” Johnny says. Mark holds his hand out to shake Yuta’s hand, but Yuta seems to take to friendships like a fish takes to water, saying, “Hey, man,” and then pulling Mark in for a one-armed hug, sweat and all. Mark doesn’t mind.
The girl approaches, holding her hands out for Yuta before he untucks the hand wraps and starts to pull them off.
“Hey Mark,” she says. “I’m Kim Yerim.”
“Hey,” Mark says. This place is so, so different from what he expected, and what he’s used to. No one in the circuit’s ever this warm on the first meeting.
“We’ve got only four trainers here,” Johnny says. “Yuta’s one of them. Jaehyun’s the other, and Junmyeon’s on honeymoon with his husband right now so we won’t see him here for a while. Seulgi had to take care of something with her folks but she’ll be back next week.”
Johnny hops off the ring, and Mark follows suit. There’s a boy with rainbow hair at the speedball whose sole focus is on his hands flying in rhythmic succession that they walk by.
“That one’s Donghyuck,” Johnny says. “Probably around your age. He’s kind of a shit, but I have a feeling you’ll get along.”
The blond he’d seen skipping rope earlier is now on the ground doing crunches next to arguably the most beautiful man Mark has ever laid his eyes on. They’re both shirtless on black mats, but pause when they see Johnny approaching.
“Mark, this is Jeno, my cousin, and Jaehyun,” Johnny says. “Guys, Mark Lee. Be nice to him.”
“What the fuck, I’m always nice!” Jeno says, laughing. His eyes disappear as he smiles.
“I wasn’t talking about you,” Johnny fires back, making Jaehyun snort.
Jaehyun sits up and offers a fist out, Mark knocking his own knuckles against them.
“Welcome to hell,” Jaehyun jokes.
“Trust me, I know what hell looks like and this place really isn’t it,” Mark replies.
“Ooh,” Jaehyun says, voice teasing as if he’s been burned. Mark sees Jaehyun’s eyes flick over, no doubt assessing the stitches over his eyebrow. “Okay, okay, I see how it is, tough guy.”
Mark sees Johnny roll his eyes fondly and walk away, and Mark waves a quick goodbye to Jaehyun as he catches up to his tour guide. Johnny shows Mark around, gesturing every so often to the weights, introducing him to a couple of others whose names he tries to file away, touring once around the modestly sized open space.
When they reach the bathroom, Mark gets a whiff of what Johnny had warned him about.
“Listen, I know,” Johnny says, wrinkling his nose. “I don’t know what miracles my old guy used to use for this place but since I’ve had to do the cleaning myself, I’ve admittedly not done a very good job really like… deep cleaning anything. Sorry about that.”
Mark huffs out a laugh.
The bathroom isn’t as much of a mess as Johnny made it out to be, but he’s sure all his years of handling the cleaning at home and in the diner will make this job easy. He’ll just have to squirrel away some cash to buy the bleach Mark’s mom swears by, but it’s a small price to pay.
“So that’s the place,” Johnny says. “I’m gonna talk to Yuta, see if he’s willing to be paired off with you since you look somewhere about the featherweight division, and Yuta’s a lightweight himself. Do you wanna start today?”
Mark thinks about the ache in his ribs, in his thighs, willing himself to push past it.
“Sure, yeah, I’ll start today,” Mark says.
“Okay, you get changed, I’ll talk to Yuta,” Johnny says, backing up and turning on his heel. “See you out there!”
Mark exhales for what feels like the first time since he stepped foot in here. He feels a little in over his head, trying to absorb the fact that he’s gotten so much more than he’d bargained for. Taeil had told he’d be able to find some luck with Johnny, but Mark hadn’t allowed himself to believe it.
Mark sets his bag down and glances at himself in the grimy mirror. When he pulls his shirt off, he sees the nasty bruise where the last blow from Delaney had landed. He’s lost count of how long it’s been since then. He just counts the days by the color of his bruises, and this green-yellow tells him it’s been about a week or so. Still hurts a bit, but nothing he can’t handle.
He closes his eyes, grateful that his concussion hadn’t been too bad--just a couple of days of a headache, but he winces at the thought of how much the CT scan cost them.
It’s hard, knowing that this is what he does best, knowing that more than anything, fighting gives Mark the focus and the means to make things easier for him and his family. And he’s fucking good at it. He wonders what will become of him when he gets to actually train how to fight properly; wonders how he’ll feel when whatever it is Taeil saw in him actually comes out.
He changes quickly into his sweats and the black sleeveless t-shirt he’d plucked off from the top of the clean laundry pile, bending over to make sure his shoelaces are tied well enough that he doesn’t trip.
There’s a gaping sort of hole in his stomach where anxiety eats away at him, resting hollow and heavy at the same time while he pulls out the ratty yellowing hand wraps and worn boxing gloves that Taeil had gifted him.
“Sorry kid, these are the best I can do,” he’d said, before handing them over, when Mark had finally decided to go try and find Johnny. “I don’t ever wanna see you back in this joint. You’re too good for it.”
Mark glances at himself again in the mirror, takes a deep breath, and walks back out into the gym.
-
Yuta is an eager trainer, Mark finds really quickly, but also a brutal one. He makes Mark run laps around the gym, making him jog a solid twenty minutes before making him drop and do three sets of ten jumping jacks, ten push-ups, and ten squats.
It’s by the third set of push-ups that Mark’s arms start to give out. He feels every old bruise now, even when he shouldn’t. His biceps are screaming at him to stop and he hasn’t even gotten to the basic punches yet. He collapses, knees hard on the padded mat beneath him, sweat trickling down his forehead and into his eyes.
“Hey fresh blood, you’re still on the clock, hey,” Yuta says, crouching down to get on eye-level with Mark. It’s almost like a dare like Yuta is trying to see if he can break Mark this early. He feels a tinge of his old anger, annoyed with himself for not being able to push harder even if the workout has just begun.
Mark gets back in position, propping himself up on his hands and the tips of his feet, his core straining to keep his back straight, ass tucked in.
“Keep going, you’ve got this,” Yuta says, smiling slightly.
“You’re gonna kill the boy,” Johnny says from the water fountain, laughing.
“Nah,” Yuta says flippantly. “I’m gonna train the boy how to kill--hey! What the fuck!”
Johnny’s thrown a soggy towel at Yuta’s face, making him sputter and making Mark lose his count, collapsing on the mat again, breathless from laughter.
“Boxing isn’t about killing, you twat,” Johnny says, fake-sternly like he and Yuta have had this conversation before. He holds a hand out for Yuta to take, which Yuta does, springing up to stand before Johnny claps him on the back again.
“Gotcha, chief,” Yuta says, and Johnny tosses an eye-roll over his shoulder before walking back to his office.
Mark stands up, watching the retreating figure of Johnny just as Yuta catches Mark’s eye.
“He takes this stuff really seriously,” Yuta says, nodding towards Johnny’s office. “Even if he can’t do it much anymore. Man’s instincts don’t go away.”
“Yeah, I can imagine,” Mark says, before finally turning back to Yuta. “Okay. You can go back to kicking my ass, boss.”
Yuta laughs, throwing his head back. “I like you, kid.”
“I’m not a kid,” Mark retorts like it’s a knee-jerk reaction, quick and rough before he realizes he shouldn’t be talking back at his trainer. “S-sorry, I mean--”
Yuta waves it off.
“I know what it’s like to be angry about that,” Yuta says. “You must’ve heard it a lot on the circuit, huh?”
Mark gets back into position, ready to squat, before he sighs and says, “You have no fucking idea.”
Yuta regards him, and Mark feels something shift an inch to the left.
“I’ll drop the ‘kid’ then,” Yuta says, grinning. “But you’re Markie from now on, got it?”
Markie. It makes Mark feel like he’s been given something special, even if it feels a little juvenile. A nickname in these places means something.
“Got it,” Mark says, and takes a breath, before resuming his exercise.
-
He’s exhausted by the time Yuta is done with him, and the sun’s setting when he manages to get himself under the spray of the water. Jeno and Jaehyun are in the showers next to his, and they’re talking loudly about what they’re planning to do for dinner. Mark lets their voices bounce off the tiles and the blessedly hot water wash over him as his muscles begin to relax.
“Yo, new blood,” Jaehyun calls out. “You got any plans tonight? We’re gonna go grab some chicken wings and a Buddha Bowl at Crisp. You wanna come with?”
Crisp. Mark can’t afford that, not right now. He swallows and thinks about the dinner his mom probably prepared already. “I’m good! Thanks, man, maybe next time.”
Mark’s quiet for the most part, his body aching but in a way that’s more pleasant than he expected. When he steps out of the shower with his towel around his hips, Jeno’s already dressed head to toe in a black Adidas tracksuit, and Jaehyun is pulling his jeans on. Both of them are built like they don’t have any body fat. Their muscles are defined, toned, bulkier than Mark’s. Definitely not his weight class. Mark had watched them training earlier, finding that Jeno is better at speed than power, where Jaehyun is the opposite.
“So what’s this fight you’re training for, Mark? Is it the Golden Gloves?” Jaehyun asks, sitting down on the bench to pull a black sock on.
“Uh, no, no, nothing prestigious like that, man,” Mark says, taking his change of clothes out of his gym bag. “It’s one of those play for money kind of things. If I beat everyone out, I stand to win three thousand dollars.”
“I get that,” Jeno says, whistling and pulling his gym bag’s strap over his shoulder. “Hey, this place is great. Johnny doesn’t like, train train anymore but his mind’s still really fucking sharp and he can’t resist giving his two cents even if he keeps acting like he’s an old foggy cos of his shoulder. You’re gonna win.”
“Yeah, and you’ve got Yuta,” Jaehyun says. “He’s a hardass, which I’m sure you’re fully aware of now, but that dude used to kick ass and take names back when he still lived in Osaka.”
“Why’d he move here, then?” Mark asks, wondering if he’s even allowed to know this information about the trainer he’d only just met earlier in the day.
“Oh, ask Yuta yourself,” Jaehyun replies, rolling his eyes. “He loves telling the story of how he moved here for love.”
“Hahaha, okay, that’s cool,” Mark replies.
“Anyway, we’re off,” Jeno says, taking Jaehyun’s hand, which Mark double-takes at, before feeling warmth spread through his limbs. Mark hadn’t even gotten the vibe, but he’s realizing that Seo Gym’s full of surprises.
“See you guys,” Mark says, watching them walk out of the bathroom hand in hand, Jaehyun’s free one waving overhead.
He finishes getting dressed and looks at himself closely in the mirror. He needs to get his stitches taken out now that he’s done with the antibiotics and the skin looks pink and dry where it had been red and raw. He sends a quick text out to his mom that he’s gonna be home soon, and exits the locker room.
Johnny’s still sitting in his office, and Mark crosses the expanse of the gym to get there, tapping on the glass lightly.
“Yo, how’d today go for you?” Johnny asks warmly, and Mark spots the dimple there before he clears his throat.
“It was really, really good, man, thank you, thank you for real,” Mark says, gripping tight on the strap of his bag again. “Yuta gave me a run for my money. And everyone’s really, really nice. I’m like, not used to it, haha.”
“I can imagine that the company here is better than having to avert your eyes in parking lots and basements,” Johnny laughs. “No matter how good the pay was. But like I said, it’s all good.”
“I’ll come by in the morning to start really like, deep-cleaning the place since my shift doesn’t start til the evening,” Mark says. “I’ll bring my own bleach and shit, I just need the mop and the brushes that you showed me. Thanks again for this, Johnny. I really appreciate it.”
Johnny waves his hand and shakes his head.
“You met a couple of the others, didn’t you? A lot of them pay full price, and some even a little more, and they seem happy to,” Johnny says. “Covers pretty much all the stuff that needs to be paid for here like the utilities and what I pay the guys. Everything else comes from my side hustle.”
“Your side hustle?” Mark asks, leaning on the doorframe.
“Copywriter,” Johnny says, nodding at his laptop screen. “I get to work remotely, and it pays okay enough, all things considered. It helps that I own this place and that I live upstairs. It's the smartest thing I did with my prize money from my heyday, I guess. I mean, that and some stocks.”
Mark wishes that he had his life figured out the way Johnny seems to. He wishes that he had the option to buy their place and invest in some stocks, but right now he’s been living paycheck to paycheck. His mom’s job at the bank is steady and reliable, but it’s only just enough to get them by.
“That’s cool though, like, all of it,” Mark says, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Thanks, I think so, too,” Johnny replies. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? The gym will be open so you can just slip right in when you’re gonna start like, cleaning and all. If there’s anything you need, just holler so I can come down and help you out with whatever, okay?”
“Ah, yeah, that’s okay, I’ll be okay,” Mark says. “I’ll uh, head out now. Bye, Johnny.”
“See you, man,” Johnny says, turning back to his laptop just as Mark turns his back to him.