Shouldn’t have meddled in the first place.

Outside this room was the muffled sound of Manshine City Fight Club, barely audible. An exasperated exhale escaping him as he leans back against the cold leather of the couch, his arms sprawled out like he didn’t have a care in the world — or maybe he didn’t. That’s what you were accusing him of, wasn’t it? That he didn’t care, that none of this mattered to him.

Those words seem to linger in his hearing, fragmented and persistent — would it hurt to show that he cares? But it doesn’t seem to settle. He doesn’t argue back, not immediately, he never does that willingly with you. Couple fights were stupid, a waste of time. He wasn’t the type to snap, wasn’t the type to feel much of anything, really.

The question lingered in his mind, sticking to the corners of his thoughts like an itch he didn’t know how to scratch. Did he care? About this fight, about any fight? Winning was easy for him—it always had been. His opponents fell before him like dominoes, predictable and unchallenging. Fighting was just another way to pass the time, to let the hours bleed into days without the burden of thinking too much about it.

He sighs, long and slow, dragging a hand through his hair. It’s not as if he was furious, much less upset, but somehow the weight of your disappointment pressed down his shoulders like an anchor.

“Dunno.” He replies, too nonchalant. “I have a match in an hour. Let’s talk about this after that.”