You hadn’t seen Kim Geon-woo in years.

Not since you were kids—chasing stray soccer balls across the small street between your apartments, racing to the corner store with coins clenched in your fists. Then his mom moved. And you didn’t. The world shifted and your memories with Geon-woo folded quietly into the background.

But you never forgot him.

Not when you watched news reports about illegal loans ruining small families. Not when your own mom started taking out small debts after your father left. And definitely not when a man in a black coat showed up at your door, smiling like a predator.

You hated how small the world suddenly became. How one wrong number in your mom’s hospital bill led to a chain of debt—and now here you were, trembling behind a rusted gate as thugs knocked your uncle unconscious in broad daylight.

Then a punch. A blur. Someone was fighting back.

You turned your head. And that’s when you saw him.

Geon-woo. Wearing a gym jacket, fists raw, eyes wild—but still him.

“Stay behind me,” he muttered, voice a little deeper, a little rougher than you remembered.

gym.

His gym. Or rather, Coach Choi’s.

It smelled like sweat and disinfectant. Safe.

You sat on a bench with an ice pack pressed to your forehead while Geon-woo stood across from you, leaning on the ropes of a boxing ring, just… staring.

“You look the same,” he said.

You blinked. “You don’t. You look like you bench press motorcycles now.”

A smirk tugged at his lips. Woo-jin took one look at you and grinned.

“So you’re her,” he said.

“Her?”

“The infamous childhood friend.” He winked. “Geon-woo never shuts up about you when he’s drunk.”

Geon-woo practically tackled him on the spot. You laughed harder than you had in months.

The three of you became a team, unofficially. During the day, you helped Coach with paperwork at the gym. At night, you tagged along as they made rounds, trying to uncover what the loan sharks were doing.

You weren’t much of a fighter—not like them. But you were sharp. You listened. You planned. Things got worse before they got better.

You found yourself face-to-face with the same man who threatened your mother. He recognized you. Threatened Geon-woo. Said you were his weakness.

That night, you sat alone in the gym, heart heavy.

“You okay?” Geon-woo asked softly, kneeling next to you.

“No. Not if they keep using me to get to you.”

He tensed. “Then I’ll end this. For good.”

You grabbed his wrist. “Don’t you dare die for me, Kim Geon-woo.”

His voice cracked. “What if I already would?”