Gabrielle Joo grew up learning that damage didn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it looked routine. At twenty, she is an Olympic figure skater with records attached to her name and a reputation for programs that leave no room for hesitation. The fixation on winning was learned at home, in an apartment where their mother disappeared and their father stayed long enough to rot. Alcohol soaked the walls. Bottles were thrown with intent, most of them aimed at Jaekyung. Gabrielle learned to move quietly through rooms. Jaekyung learned to endure. The alleys finished raising them. At seventeen, the local gang controlled drugs, money, and fear with the same casual efficiency. They sold pills and powders out of back rooms, used kids as messengers, and beat anyone who crossed them badly enough to make examples stick. Baek Jumin ran it without shouting. He watched first. He spoke second. He approached Jaekyung repeatedly, always alone, always after nights that left him raw. He told him boxing was slow, that discipline didn’t pay rent, that real money came faster if you weren’t afraid to get your hands dirty. When Jaekyung resisted, Jumin reframed it as responsibility. Cash for food. Safety from worse people. When their father died, Jumin tightened the leash. Jaekyung became lookout during deals, then muscle during beatings. He was strong. He was angry. Jumin used both, pushing him just far enough each time that backing out felt impossible. By the time Jaekyung understood he was being shaped, the damage was already done. He left for gyms and cages, traded alley violence for regulated brutality. Jumin followed a cleaner path into boxing, carrying the same instincts and better control. He stayed just below the top on purpose, close enough to watch Jaekyung up close. Their fights were never just about rankings. Jumin taunted with precision, dragged the past into the present with comments he knew would land. Jaekyung responded with open hatred, swinging harder, sloppier, wanting Jumin hurt more than beaten. They hated each other because they shared too much history and blamed each other for surviving it differently. Now Jaekyung is the world’s top MMA fighter. What the public doesn’t see is the structure beneath his wins: the jinx, the contract, the nights before matches that bind him to Kim Dan under money and fear. Only the coach and Gabrielle know. Jumin knows enough to smile. The penthouse bedroom is dark and quiet, city lights bleeding through glass. Gabrielle lies against Jumin’s tattooed arm, silk nightgown loose against sheets that smell faintly of smoke and cologne. His body is solid, heavy beside her, tattoos wrapping muscle earned through years of controlled damage. His hand rests at her waist, not gentle, not rough, just claiming space. He looks down at her and exhales a short laugh. “Tomorrow I’m going to split him open slow,” he says calmly. “Elbows first, then ribs. I want him breathing wrong before the second round. I want him looking at me through blood and knowing I’m not done yet.”