Sweat rained down on the mats.
Leather snapped like thunder. Breath came in sharp bursts, like steam hissing out of cracked pipes. Shoes squeaked and scraped against the worn blue mats, a constant shuffle underneath the impact of fists slamming into pads and bodies colliding, in short, ugly bursts.
The air tasted like rubber and salt and the faint metallic ghost of old blood that no amount of disinfectant ever fully wiped away.
Hao rolled his shoulders until something popped. His gloves were already strapped on, knuckles pressed together, wrists tight. Warm-up should've left him a little winded. Light jogging around the ring, shadowboxing, a few rounds on the heavy bag.
Instead, his lungs felt… bored.
His heartbeat thudded in his chest, steady as a metronome.
He bounced on his toes at the edge of the ring, watching the others. Two seniors hammered at each other inside, big guys from the neighborhood who treated the place like a second home and everyone smaller than them like moving sandbags.
They moved well. Tight guards. Sharp hooks. Enough power behind their shots to rattle bones.
He could still see every opening.
That was new.
It's like someone turned down the noise in my head.
He wasn't a professional fighter. Didn't want to be. Boxing was what he did in the dead parts of summer, when school stopped chewing on his time and the city heat made his apartment feel like a slow.
Here, at least, things made sense.
You moved your body.
Your body answered.
If it didn't, you got hit.
Simple. Cleaner than everything else.
"Next!" Mr. Jon called.
The round ended with the quick triple-beat of the timer. The two seniors bumped gloves, slid through the ropes, and dropped down to sit on the bench, chests heaving.
Jon's dark eyes flicked toward Hao. His half-shaved beard made him look permanently stuck between "retired thug" and "tired uncle," streaks of grey cutting through the stubble.
"You're up," he said.
Hao slipped under the ropes, heart still annoyingly calm. One of the seniors, Doru, grinned through his mouthguard as he pulled his headgear back on.
"Try not to die, little man," Doru muffled.
Hao pulled his own headgear on, rolling his neck again. His muscles felt loose, warm, and coiled. Not like he'd just finished warming up.
More like he'd been doing this for years without ever stopping.
It wasn't like this before the basement.
He pushed that thought away.
Jon raised a hand from the outside. "Ready?"
Hao lifted his gloves.
The senior nodded.
"Time!"
The first punch came a heartbeat later.
Doru stepped in, testing him with a lazy jab. At least, it looked lazy. Hao saw the shift in his shoulders, the slight twist of his torso, the way his weight began to roll forward.
His body moved before he decided.
His head slipped just off the centerline, the glove whispering past his hair instead of smashing into his nose.
Too easy.
A hook grazed where his jaw had been a moment before.
He countered without thinking.
Jab to the guard. Cross to his exposed ribs.
His shoulders rotated perfectly with each shot, power stacking through his hips. Punches that usually felt "good enough" now came out sharp and precise, like someone had shaved off all the wasted motion and left only the useful parts.
The impact echoed through his gloves, solid and clean.
There was no lag between seeing and doing.
No gap between thought and action.
The ring shrank. The noise of the rest of the gym faded. It was just the narrow rectangle of blue under his feet, the bigger body in front of him, and the thin buzz of focus singing somewhere behind his eyes.
He saw everything.
The tiny flinch in Doru's left eye before he jabbed. The way his right shoulder dipped a fraction of a second too early whenever he tried to throw a hook. The rhythm of breathing, ragged and getting worse with every exchange.
He was strong.
He was experienced.
He was also slow.
Not in reality. In reality, he was fast enough to beat him bloody any other week. But now?
Now his movements dragged like he was wading through water.
He stepped in under Doru's guard, cracked two short shots into his body, and slid away before the counter came.
"When did he learn to move like that?" Doru muttered
Hao's lungs should have burned by now. Sweat should have stung his eyes. Instead, his breathing came easily, each inhale sliding in cool and deep, each exhale steady.
He wasn't tireless.
He just wasn't getting tired at the speed he was supposed to.
Blessing. System. Anchor. Trial.
Doru got annoyed.
"Stop dancing," he grunted, swinging heavier. His gloves cut the air with more force, but they also telegraphed more.
Hao ducked under a looping hook, coatless shoulders brushing past his arm. His counter snapped up automatically, glove tapping Doru's chin just hard enough to knock his head back and piss him off further.
I shouldn't be able to do this.
He knew how he used to move. Stiff. A little late. Always half a step behind, relying more on his stubbornness.
Now every adjustment was microscopic and perfect. Every slip put him exactly outside the line of fire. Every step landed where it should, center of gravity glued in place like someone had nailed it there.
He threw a combination on reflex.
Jab. Cross. Left hook to the body. Short right uppercut to the guard, just to drive him back.
Doru cursed behind his mouthguard.
The timer hadn't even hit thirty seconds.
This isn't normal.
Doesn't matter. Keep going.
He let the world narrow down further. It wasn't magic. It was angles, distances, centerlines. But his brain ate the information and spat out responses faster than it had any right to.
Footwork patterns he'd drilled sloppily for months now ran like a clean program. Head movement he'd always been half a beat late on lined up right where it needed to be.
He started to enjoy himself.
Not because he liked hitting people that much.
Because his body was finally doing what he'd always tried to make it do.
Another jab came toward his face. He slipped outside it, pivoted, and landed a short, mean shot into Doru's liver. Doru folded a little, a hiss tearing from his throat.
The timer beeped.
"Break!" Mr. Jon barked. "Hao. Out. Over here."