The light was still on when he left.
He came back the next day five minutes before the time.
Day One.
6:00 AM. The black floor. The bag.
Baek Sung Chul didn't explain. He only pointed.
Ji Hun Min began.
The bag was heavier than the bag at the Yeongdeungpo gym. Stiffer. As though it didn't want to move. Ji Hun Min hit. The bag moved a little. He hit again. The bag came back.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
After an hour:
"Stop."
Ji Hun Min stopped.
"You hit like an official boxer."
"I am an official boxer."
"Were."
Day Three.
Yoon again.
This time Ji Hun Min more prepared — he knew the knee, knew the elbow, knew that the strike doesn't stop at the strike.
But Yoon had learned too. Or perhaps hadn't shown everything on the first day.
Rabbit punch from behind again — but this time Ji Hun Min stepped back half a second before it.
Half a second only. But enough.
Yoon looked at him.
Something changed in his gaze — not admiration. Recognition.
Day Five.
Baek Sung Chul stopped training early.
Ji Hun Min was wrapping his hand when he noticed it — a bag in the far corner. Old, its leather dark from long use. At its base a small symbol carved into the leather — not a brand. Something else. Two characters in an indistinct hand.
He looked at it for a long time.
Then looked at Baek Sung Chul.
"That symbol — what is it?"
Baek Sung Chul looked at the bag. Then looked at Ji Hun Min.
A brief silence.
"When you learn something at the right time — you absorb it. When you learn it before its time — it weighs you down."
He neither confirmed nor denied.
Ji Hun Min looked at the symbol once more. Memorised it.
And didn't ask again.
Day Seven. Night.
The apartment.
Ji Hun Min lying on the bed. The white-yellowed ceiling. The damp stain in the left corner.
His hands before him. The white wrappings — but they hadn't stayed fully white this week. Faint red at the knuckles every day. Washed. Returned.
One week.
His body had learned things he hadn't learned in seven years.
He closed his eyes.
Friday. 9:00 PM.
The building in the Gasan industrial district was the same from the outside.
But inside — the light warmer and darker. As though they had replaced the cold tubes with something resembling the lighting of places where people pay a great deal to see things that can't be seen anywhere else.
Around the ring — people.
No stands. No elevation. They sat at the same level as the floor on scattered dark chairs — close enough to hear the breathing. Not a usual audience. No raised voices. No cheering. They sat the way those who were accustomed to being given what they wanted without asking sat.
Ji Hun Min looked at them for a second.
Then looked at the ring.
Baek Sung Chul beside him. Silent.
Then in a low voice:
"The opponent — Lee Cheol Woo. Three years here. He hasn't lost."
Ji Hun Min didn't answer.
In the scattered chairs — in the front row — Han Jae Won.
He didn't turn toward him. Didn't nod. Just sitting — like someone who came to see something he knew would happen.
And beside him — Kang Ha Eun. Her eyes on the ring. Her face saying nothing.
The ring.
No referee. No bell.
Across from him — Lee Cheol Woo. Forty-two. His body not the body of someone who trains — the body of someone who has lived in the ring.
Ji Hun Min looked at him.
Lee Cheol Woo moved first.
Slow — but the slow that deceives.
A right strike — Ji Hun Min read it and retreated. A movement practised over seven years.
Then came the elbow.
Elbow strike.
Instinct told him: step back. But that was the mistake — in the official ring stepping back takes you away from the elbow. Here it puts you in its path.
The elbow reached his right shoulder.
Real pain. And the mistake clearer.
Seven years of correct rules — and here the rules were different.
Two minutes passed.
Lee Cheol Woo hitting. Ji Hun Min reading. But the reading slow — his body anticipating what it had learned, and the opponent doing what he hadn't learned.
Headbutt suddenly — Ji Hun Min raised his hand in defence. The wrong instinct again. The head reached his left eyebrow.
Faint blood.
But Lee Cheol Woo didn't tire. The patience of an animal that knows its prey will weaken in the end.
Ji Hun Min felt this.
The strike came from a place he hadn't anticipated — the point of the shoulder. A full charge.
Shoulder charge.
Ji Hun Min hit the floor.
The black floor under his hand.
In his head — not the pain. Something else.
The body goes before the mind thinks.
He got up.
Lee Cheol Woo looked at him. In his eyes something resembling surprise.
Ji Hun Min looked at him.
One week is not enough to forget seven years. But it's enough to remember why you started.
He moved.
This time he didn't step back — he stepped to the side.
The new instinct. Slow but present.
A left strike landed.
Then a second.
Lee Cheol Woo stepped back — for the first time.
Ji Hun Min didn't stop.
Rabbit punch to the back of the neck.
Elbow strike to the left cheek.
Lee Cheol Woo went down on one knee.
Silence around the ring.
Then Baek Sung Chul's voice:
"Enough."
Ji Hun Min stood in the centre of the ring.
His hands at his sides. Breathing.
Lee Cheol Woo on his knee. Hadn't risen yet.
Kang Ha Eun said quietly to Han Jae Won:
"This is our new boxer."
Han Jae Won looked at the ring.
Didn't answer.
But didn't deny it.
In the back corridor — Ji Hun Min removing the wrappings.
The red on the white cloth.
Footsteps behind him.
Han Jae Won.
He stopped two steps away. Took out a thin file. Put it in Ji Hun Min's hand.
"Read it."
Ji Hun Min opened the file.
One page. Printed.
Name: Lee Cheol Woo.
Age: forty-two.
Criminal record: repeated assault. Theft. And a charge dropped for procedural reasons. The victim: a woman. Her age at the time: twenty-one.
Ji Hun Min remained looking at the page.
Read it a second time.
He closed the file. Looked at Han Jae Won.
"Why are you giving me this now?"
"So you know why you won."
Kang Ha Eun was standing at the wall.
She looked at Han Jae Won.
"You care about him."
Han Jae Won didn't answer.
The corridor in silence.
Ji Hun Min looked at the file in his hand.
Then looked at Han Jae Won.
Said nothing.
He walked.
The air outside the building cold and clean.
Ji Hun Min stood for a second.
In his hand the file. In his head one question he hadn't asked:
Who comes after him?
He walked.