Pay With Your Body

What was this.

Everything felt unreal, as if she were trapped inside someone else's dream.

As Harin shoved the business card into her pocket, she noticed the cigarette lying on the ground — its ember still glowing.

She stepped forward in a single stride and crushed it out, then bent to toss the stub into the bin. The weight of the bag pressing down on her shoulder felt heavier than usual today.

It had to be the cash. The longer she went without paying it back, the more like a real debt it seemed to become.

Well, someone has to show his face eventually — so he can get repaid, or pass along whatever message he came to deliver.

Harin ran her hand over the top of the bag, confirming again that the money was there. It was money she owed, yes — but without it, daily life would have been so much harder.

Her throat burned. Her chest felt tight and clogged.

"Hah……"

She exhaled slowly, but that unpleasant sensation refused to dissolve.

The acrid air still lingered where the man had smoked earlier. It would clear soon enough.

Her fingertips, resting on the bag, drifted sideways and began to scratch lightly at the hard edge of something rectangular.

She needed something else — anything — to smother this hollow, suffocating feeling.

Harin reached boldly into her bag and pulled out the pack of cigarettes she'd been fidgeting with earlier, along with the sleek lighter.

She set a cigarette between her lips and flicked the lighter. Watching the orange flame, she brought it close.

Szz—

The tip caught slowly, and smoke began to curl upward.

Yoon Lee-gang seemed to hate cigarettes. Was it the smell of burning that bothered him? Or the stench that clung to your clothes and skin?

Picturing that fox-faced look of his, Harin couldn't help a small laugh.

And yet he looks like a smoker.

She tucked the lighter back into the bag and brought her hand up to the cigarette between her lips — when, far off in the distance, the round glow of headlights caught her eye.

The car slowed, and drew to a stop right in front of the bin where Harin stood.

Where have I seen that black sedan before — the thought had barely formed when the driver's door swung open and Lee-gang stepped out.

Harin's eyes went wide. Whatever question of why he'd come at this hour was answered almost immediately.

Despite the late hour, he was dressed to work out — a sleeveless top and loose shorts.

"Hey, Chainsmoker."

But one question refused to go away: why, as he drew closer with a scowl darkening his face, was there a fleck of blood caught at the corner of his mouth.

"You're not gonna put that out?"

I just lit it.

She'd finally started getting used to the smoke stinging her eyes, and had been about to take her first real drag. Fat chance.

Before she could do anything, his long arm shot out and plucked the cigarette from her fingers.

Harin watched with a flat expression as he tapped the ember dead against his fingertips. No matter how many times she looked, that was unmistakably a smoker's form. He handled the flame far too naturally.

"Why aren't you heading home? What are you doing out here."

The business card in her pocket — Ryu Seo-in's — flashed through her mind.

Her gaze flicked briefly to the wound on his lip before she spoke carefully.

"A friend of yours came by."

"A friend?"

"Ryu Seo-in. He said he was worried because he couldn't reach you."

She deliberately didn't mention the card. The mood between the two of them had seemed off, like they'd fought, and she didn't want to pry carelessly.

"Worried? Him?"

He asked it with a short, incredulous laugh.

Harin pressed her lips shut at her own slip of the tongue. Ryu Seo-in had practically seethed, saying Lee-gang had hit him — so why on earth had worried popped out of her mouth?

Searching for a way to change the subject, she fiddled needlessly with the bag strap on her shoulder. Her fingertips wavered awkwardly.

Oh, right. The money.

She quickly pulled the thick envelope of cash from her bag and held it out to him.

"Here."

But he didn't take it. He just stared at the envelope without expression for a moment, then turned his head away.

"Keep it."

His answer was clipped. His profile, gaze fixed somewhere far off, looked somehow unreadable.

"Please take it."

What's his problem?

When Harin held the envelope closer to his face, Lee-gang slipped sideways out of reach and said,

"You need the money."

"I don't want to owe you."

"……"

"Just take it. My arm's getting tired."

"No."

A thin line of sweat prickled down the back of Harin's neck from holding her arm up so long. Irritation was starting to creep in. What does he want from me?

Lee-gang, who had been staring into the empty air, slowly turned his head and looked straight into her eyes.

After a short silence, he spoke.

"If you're that desperate to pay me back, don't do it with money. Do it with your body."

For a moment, Harin thought she'd misheard.

"With my…… body?"

She frowned, half-asking for confirmation, and he nodded with a perfectly indifferent face.

Harin withdrew the hand holding the money, her expression frosting over. Her eyes, fixed on Lee-gang, twisted sharp and hard.

As a joke, it was the worst. As a serious offer, it was even worse.

In the sports world, there were always people like this — clinging on, trying to take something filthy for themselves. Sometimes it was a teammate or a senior athlete, sometimes a coach or the staff, sometimes one of the high and mighty above them all.

Of course, Harin had absolutely zero tolerance for illegal shortcuts — trading her body, or any of those under-the-table tricks people pulled for fame.

She opened her mouth to shut him down firmly — but he was faster.

"Sparring."

Lee-gang said it with a casual shrug, tossing the words out like an afterthought.

"Excuse me?"

"Spar with me."

"……Sparring?"

Harin stared at him, dumbfounded. So pay with your body meant let's spar?

"You don't want to?"

"……"

"Am I talking to myself here?"

Clicking his head in exasperation, he turned toward the gym door.

Harin fished the spare key from her pocket and hurriedly asked as he went to unlock it.

"Right now? You want to spar right now?"

"Yeah."

At his reply — delivered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world — Harin stood frozen in place, feeling foolish.

Watching her for a moment, Lee-gang went, "Oh," as if something had just occurred to him.

"I'll drive you home after. No camping out on the curb."

With a soft snort of laughter, he slipped inside the gym.

Harin stuffed the cash back into her bag and fiddled with the strap on her shoulder. The fabric felt unusually rough against her fingertips.

Maybe this was for the better, actually? She was strapped for cash, and if one sparring session could cover it, that was a win, wasn't it?

She tried to look on the bright side, but somehow the thought left an oddly sour taste.

As she stood staring at the wide-open glass door of the gym, Harin suddenly remembered the day she'd gone up against him a few days ago.

He'd taken her down with some judo or jiu-jitsu throw she couldn't name, and he'd even checked her injured right shoulder afterward.

All of it had been humiliating — but what had cut deepest into her pride as an athlete was the look in his eyes during that spar, so unmistakably holding back.

Well, since it had come to this, she had no intention of lying down as meekly as she had then.

Harin clenched her fist. Competitive fire surged through her.

"You coming in or what?"

His voice carried out from inside the gym.

Adjusting her bag strap, Harin strode inside.

Only half the lights were on inside the gym. A single yellow lamp hung over the sparring ring, making the empty space around it feel vaster, more desolate.

The air, steeped in sweat and the rubber smell of mats, pricked at her nose.

Harin set down her bag and shrugged off her jacket. Her taped shoulder was laid bare beneath the sleeveless top, but she didn't care.

She tightened her grip into a fist. Her shoulder felt heavy — but today, more than any other, she refused to fold.

"What, are you nervous?"

Lee-gang, fiddling with his gloves outside the ring, asked as he studied her.

Harin twisted her lips into a smirk.

As if.

She grabbed her gloves and rolled her shoulders a couple of times. The taped joint felt stiff, but she'd been steadying herself since earlier, repeating over and over that she was fine.

At some point Lee-gang had stepped into the ring. He stared at her for a long moment, then asked abruptly,

"Shoulder. It okay?"

He was clearly still bothered by the hard blow he'd landed on her right shoulder before.

Harin dropped her gaze as if it were nothing, and answered shortly.

"It's fine."

The formal ending always attached itself naturally to her speech.

Lee-gang narrowed his eyes, looking less than satisfied.

"How long are you going to keep talking to me like that?"

Harin paused halfway up onto the ring at the unexpected question.

"How old…… are you, exactly?"

He wants me to drop formality? He looked around her age, but he was technically a gym customer, and everyone around called him Boss Yoon — so Harin had been careful.

"Twenty-seven."

Leaning against the ropes of the ring, he looked down at her with a vaguely dissatisfied expression.

Harin just silently gazed back up at him.

The way he loomed over people, that air of easy confidence overflowing from him — every single thing he did struck her as rude and insufferable. Was he just born that way?

Not wanting to feel small for no reason, Harin bumped her age up by a year before answering.

"We're the same age, then. I'll drop the formalities."

Terrified of being caught in the lie, she climbed up onto the ring, trying her best to look casual about it.

"Ha."

A laugh that was half exasperation, half disbelief, escaped Lee-gang.

"What."

Harin stared at him with a face that said she had no idea what the problem was.

"Every kind of show there is, and I'm getting the full tour."

Murmuring something unreadable past a smile, Lee-gang walked to the opposite side of the ring and stopped.

The vaguely threatening air that rolled off him made Harin falter for a beat — but there was no displeasure on his face. If anything, the look in his raised eyes belonged to someone thoroughly enjoying the situation.

"Hurry up and get your guard up."

She raised both gloved hands into position, partly to change the subject.