Things started to change then.

With the new money, Chanyeol moved out of his tiny apartment and moved into a newer, bigger and nicer one closer to campus. He thought a new place, a new home where he could be comfortable would make him feel better. It hasn’t. It feels wrong. Despite his belongings filling up the once clean sleek corners, he feels out of place — like he doesn’t belong. The punches that land on him almost on a daily basis help him forget that he doesn’t belong.

He buys some new clothes from the fancy, expensive shops he couldn’t afford before, and spends out on a new haircut, dying it red again.

He’s sleeping in classes a lot, not learning anything new. But the teachers smile at him like it’s progress when he arrives, so he feels better about it.

Nights without a round in the ring either means hanging out with Kris or doing muscle work for Joonmyun. Kris is no less persistent, asking Chanyeol how on earth he got beaten up this time. But he’s running out of excuses. Kris is sick of getting dodged and Chanyeol is sick of dodging. He wishes he could just end it all with a click of his fingers and tell Kris everything.

He’s not sure if he can quit this. Not since Joonymun’s got him under his thumb. He doesn’t know what Joonmyun would do if he said he wanted out. Probably have his head or skin him or something.

But as much as he’s grown to love the ring, the sweat on his brow, the anticipation of his opponent’s move, the sound of his knuckles landing on bone and skin and the roar of the crowd, it can’t be forever.

After a particularly gruelling night in the ring that leaves Chanyeol barely standing, he seeks out the doorman. Baekhyun would know better than anyone how to quit this, since he seems closer to Joonmyun than anyone else he knows.

He is of course there, at his desk with the tiny, aged TV, only this time a girl is leaning across the metal surface with a sultry smile on her playing on her voluptuous bright red painted lips. Chanyeol almost vomits at the leer Baekhyun is giving her in reply.

“Baekhyun,” he grumbles through bloodied and swollen lips. “Can I have a word?”

The black haired man glances at him briefly before taking the girl’s hand and scribbling across it in black pen. He whispers ‘call me’ and leaves a lingering kiss on her knuckles and she slinks away out of the club. His expression darkens when he turns to Chanyeol. “What is it?”

“I figured you’d know how…”

Baekhyun’s eyebrows knot together tighter at Chanyeol vague statement. “How to what?”

“Quit. Quit the Exo Pit. Quit from Joonmyun.” The doorman’s expression changes in an instant into surprise.

“You can’t be serious?! Q-quit?!”

The tall redhead rubs at his bruised eye, he just wants to pass out on his bed and never wake up. “I’m deadly serious.”

Baekhyun turns away from him, running a hand through midnight locks. “I’m… not sure…”

Chanyeol sighs dejectedly. Just as he thought. He’s stuck in this mess until Joonmyun says so. “Nevermind,” he mumbles and walks away, zipping up his jacket before he leaves.

Instead of heading home, he heads for the nearest bar. He orders a double shot of whiskey. And then another… and another and the buzzing in his head turns into a strange but nicer fluffier feeling and the world swims in watercolour slowly in front of him. He doesn’t even notice that he’s taken out his phone or that he’s dialled a number and pressed it to his ear until there’s a voice on the other end.

“Chanyeol, what the hell?! It’s like 3 a.m.!” Kris groans, voice gravelly with sleep.

“Oh, I’m sorry man. I didn’t even know… I called you…” He might be having trouble sitting on the bar stool but it’s better than remembering he’s ed. Completely ed thanks to some weird gangster and his shady fighting club.

“I’m really tired, what’s wrong?” He thinks he did call Kris with some sort of purpose in mind, but he can’t really remember.

“Do you… Do you wanna hang out? Like, now?” If he was sober, he would’ve taken note of the sound of sheets moving and feet tapping across the floor.

“Are you crazy? Where are you?”

Chanyeol looks around at his surroundings and can only make up the splodges of strobe light colour and dark silhouettes of people. “I don’t know… Some bar.”

“You’re an idiot. I’m coming to get you, pass over to the bartender or something, he might make some sense.”

Chanyeol hands his phone over to the bemused bartender then the next thing he knows is there’s a tap at his shoulder and Kris is there. He grins widely, pulling him into a sloppy hug. Kris laughs at him and heaves his lanky body from the barstool and guides him out of the bar with an arm over his shoulder.

Kris is warm. Really warm when the night is quite cold. It’s nice. Like bed.

Then they’re stumbling into his horribly modern apartment and Kris is helping him sit on his bed. Or lay which is what Chanyeol ends up doing. His friend flops down next to him with a sigh, saying something like ‘you’re a lot of work’.

“I wish I could quit, Kris. I really wish I could,” he finds himself saying up to the ceiling after a moment of silence has passed. He throws his arm over heavy eyes, welcoming the darkness it creates.

“What?”

“The Exo Pit… Joonmyun… I just want it to stop now. I’ve had enough.” He’s had enough of broken bones and skin. Had enough of having a broken heart.

Kris is suddenly sitting up, hovering over him with those thick eyebrows stitched together in confusion and maybe worry. “What are you talking about? Who’s Joonmyun?” He removes the fighter’s arm away from his face gently, holding onto the wrist as if to reassure him. Chanyeol can’t see past the tears building up. It’s okay to cry in front of Kris, right? He’d understand. Kris is like that. That’s why he lo—that’s why he likes him.

“I’m… I fight for money at — at a place called the Exo Pit,” saying it out loud makes him guffaw loud and hard. So hard it hurts his ribs. The look of revelation that coats Kris’s face is so heart stopping he has to close his eyes that burn with bruises, tears, and sleep. He feels his sore lips move like he’s saying something, but he’s out quicker than a light.

‘I’m sorry, Kris.’

☄

When he wakes up, he’s wrapped up in his quilt and partially dressed as the cold sunlight beams through the curtains and his head is buzzing, but not in a good way. His wounds ache and he feels like he might throw up. No, actually, he does want to throw up. After darting to the bathroom with inhuman speed for someone having just woken up and depositing his insides in the toilet, last night comes flooding back to him. Albeit a little hazy.

Baekhyun staring at him like he’s out of his mind for quitting… The glass of whiskey in front of him… Pulling Kris into a hug… Oh .

He told him. He ing told Kris!

Kris wouldn’t go to the cops would he?

Chanyeol is in so much trouble.

Once he’s cleaned up and with some paracetamol in his system, he checks his phone. It’s 2pm. When did it get so late?! Thank goodness it’s Saturday. There’s a text from Kris waiting for him and surprisingly, one from Baekhyun as well.

Checking Kris’s first it reads: try not to get drunk at 3 am again and wake me up lol. i’ll be round later. He can feel a headache coming on and hopes the paracetamol stops it.

He then opens Baekhyun’s text.

Hi Chanyeol, It’s Baekhyun. I got your number from Sehun haha anyway, there might be a way to get out. Leave it with me.

Chanyeol’s heart leaps. There might be hope after all? He types out ‘thank you’ as quickly as he can.

☄

The rest of the day is spent enveloped in his quilt like a cocoon on the sofa, watching but not really paying attention to some comedy on TV when Kris turns up. Chanyeol tries to smile at his friend but ends up smiling at the floor instead, feeling guilty and sheepish. Kris has brought a load of snacks and junk food though which makes Chanyeol’s hangover feel slightly better.

“How are you feeling?” Kris asks, falling onto Chanyeol’s upgraded sofa. And like Chanyeol, he looks entirely too big for it, despite it being quite a large sofa anyway.

“Awful,” he chuckles, fitting as many chips as he can into his mouth. Kris snorts and helps himself to the chips too.

“Do you remember what you told me last night?” The food suddenly goes stale in Chanyeol’s mouth. He swallows before gritting out an affirmative. “How could… how could you do that yourself?”

Kris turns to him with such an earnest expression, like it genuinely hurts to see Chanyeol broken and beaten. The redhead looks at his bandaged palm, feeling the burn underneath it. “I got a rush, you know…” Fighting got his blood pumping and his heart beating. It got a fire burning bright in his heart, the feeling was indescribable. He feeds off it, he breathes it, lives it. “At first it was just for some quick money…” Chanyeol takes a deep breath in and releases it slowly. “But it became… I was something in the ring, I was the best… It didn’t matter that I was some kid failing uni, I won, I’m strong… Do you know how that feels?”

Kris could only breathe out ‘no’, he could not begin to fathom how the ‘rush’ felt to Chanyeol. How could getting hurt and hurting people in turn feel… good?

“But I’m in way over my head now, hyung. I didn’t — I didn’t think it would get this far. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, to be honest.” The smile that turns his lips is bitter and remorseful as he turns to look at the elder. “I didn’t want this…” He gestures at nothing into the air and sinks back into the sofa, running a hand down his face. The laughter from the television is suddenly deafeningly loud but he can’t be bothered to do anything about, not whilst he made it this far — getting everything off his chest; it feels like chains are being broken and lifted, like he might be somewhat free from this.

“Just stop going then. Can’t you do that?” Chanyeol grins sharply at his friend’s poor naivety.

“Not anymore. I — I got mixed in with someone bad, Kris.”

The brunette visibly swallows.

“We’ll get you out of this.”

Chanyeol leaps forward, taking both of Kris’s shoulders in his hands, with eyes wide with sincerity. “No-no-no-no! Don’t get involved! You can’t get involved. I’ll sort this myself.” Kris smiles, taking hold of Chanyeol’s wrists in his large hands.

“I will get involved, you’re my best friend. I’m going to help get away from this guy, okay.”

Chanyeol wishes he could argue but he doesn’t want to. He wants Kris’s help. He’s so glad he is on his side. There is no-one like Kris and he’s Chanyeol’s only friend. “What if you get hurt though?” Kris puts on a stern expression.

“Then I get hurt. Wounds heal, it’s nothing if it means this guy is off your back.”

The redhead relaxes with a small smile. He’s worried but he’s so relieved — there may be hope after all.