Chapter 14: Give & Take

His “masters” — a title of endearment that left a vile taste at the back of Jongdae’s tongue — dragged him out of his cage early this morning. Hun said something he couldn’t parse during the rude awakening. Han was as somber as always. He couldn't find it in him to fight back as he was hauled down the hall, ankles and wrists bound with a single chain. Screeching against concrete with each stumbling step he took, pushed from behind to “keep moving.” 

The further he walked, the closer the noise above him became. 

Jongdae was waltzing into the lion’s den. 

But, first, he was deemed unseemly by his masters. Pulled into a white room so pristine it blinded him, a metal door closed shut behind him. Separating him from the two men so burly he was amazed they could even maintain their balance. Replaced by two older women who stepped forward from nowhere, cloaked in clothes as clean as the room they occupied.

He couldn’t, wouldn’t, speak as they pulled out brushes and bowls. Tearing at his clothes, swiping oil along exposed skin. Yanking the roots of his hair, teasing it into wild plumes of black. Saying nothing, but smiling emptily.

After weeks of mistreatment, the last thing he was compelled to do was complain. He couldn’t help himself as he was dragged out of the room too soon, walking down a dimly lit hallway towards a light less comforting than the one he had just left. 

The yells and screams and laughter, the laughter, growing louder and louder and louder.

Left alone, unchained, before a large gate, Jongdae — against his will — burned every single second of what was to come in his memory.

His “Grace Period” was over.

It was time for Cerberus to enter the Dog Fights.

Jongdae walked back down that long hallway one hour later, breathing heavy and body tired but otherwise unscathed. An anticlimactic end to an eventful morning. His first Dog Fight TT and he had somehow managed to run his opponent in an infinite loop of circles. It’s the advice Hun had given him, despite Han’s warnings against it. The latter said he would only be pushing his luck. The former assured him it was his best option. 

A Dog Fight TT, or a Dog Fight Time Trial, is fought over the span of an hour. The goal is to beat the opponent, the monstrous creature in human skin, as fast as possible via knockout — killing optional. Han’s guidance was to beat the opponent so fast he makes the audience’s “heads spin.” If he showed wit in the Dog Fights, he could possibly avoid ever having to enter the test of strength that is the TTD Dog Fight. 

A Dog Fight TTD, or a Dog Fight To the Death, is fought until either the opponent or the challenger, the stray, or both are dead. A match suited for those who favor brawn over brains. Unavoidable for everyone, eventually, as time passes. The crowd roars with an almost euphoric delight when the clever mutt is smote by the bestial being that is man.

Hun’s desire was to keep Jongdae from fighting for as long as possible.

“If you’re lucky, you won’t have to fight at all.” Hun always said with a painful smile, bruised fingers gripping hard around steel bars. “We’ll escape before it comes to that.”

And Han would laugh.

Just as Jongdae did when the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of an hour. He threw a mocking howl, a blissful cackling fit, as he watched his attacker and all three-hundred pounds of pointless muscle collapse. Skin red. Chest heaving. Body convulsing. 

Jongdae's endurance was a force to be reckoned with. His adrenaline jolted out of him as he was hosed down in that same white room from before; the closest thing to a bath he had had in awhile. But the relief only set in when he saw the walls of his cage again; his masters leaving him to gloat. 

Hun shared his happy sentiments. Han was the farthest from pleased as he scolded him, “You’re going to have to fight harder than that.” 

“I don’t want to.” Jongdae answered, earning another smile from Hun.

“It’s not a matter of wanting to.” Han persisted, “You have to.” 

Eyes turning to the cell across from Jongdae’s own, Han nodded for him to do the same. It was empty. Not even twenty minutes later, the Lions' “boo"s became cheers. Ten minutes after that, it’s owner was back.

Yeol had finished what Jongdae would not.

What he could not.

“He may be a gentle giant,” Han whispered, half proud, half disgusted, "but Yeol knows he has to.” 

Jongdae woke up late the next afternoon. He had accidentally slept through “feeding time.” Dragging himself across the dusted floor, body feeling as though it were still lit aflame by the Dog Fight's arena’s blinding fluorescent lights, he grabbed ahold of the plastic package in the center of his cage. He ripped it open without a second thought, too hungry to care how squished its contents were. Halfway through his ration of bread, he looked to his left reflexively.

Hun was always at the bars when he ate, dirt-smudged fingers reaching through to him. Asking with a childish smile if he could share a bite. A growing boy needs his nutrition. Han would always say to ignore him, laughing freely within his prison.

Han’s hunched over form was unmoving, back to rusted iron, head between his knees. Jongdae did a double take, then a triple, and his question of “Where’s Hun?” was too obvious to ask, even for him. Just another reflex, an unfamiliar feeling of panic creeping up his throat. Threatening to have him upchuck his half-eaten meal. 

Han’s head rose slowly. 

Bloodshot eyes looked back at Jongdae in the darkness. The dim light casted deep shadows across the Shisa’s face. But he could hear his words. 

He could hear him ask, almost too sane: “Have you ever killed a man before, Chen?”

Jongdae gulped down, his hands dropping his food, his head shaking. 

“It’s not that hard.” Han assured him, hands reaching out, stained a violent red, “Just a little pressure here, a little extra there, and their heads pop right off.” Fingers twitching, spasming erratically, he gestured broadly, “But that’s the problem.” 

Jongdae didn’t want to hear anymore. He had already guessed the answer to his own question. He didn’t want to know if he was right. He’d rather never know. Han continued no matter what he wanted.

“Because once you kill one, once you’ve killed more than just one, enough to eliminate a handful of human genes from the kiddie pool, they upgrade you.” Han didn’t seem broken. “They make you turn and fight your own brother.” He seemed completely fine. “And it’s almost frightening how easy it is.”

It was almost terrifying how unfazed Han was. Han, who had killed his twin brother, Hun, in a Dog Fight TTD earlier this same evening. Han, who before him laid an empty plastic package, devoured without remorse, bloody fingerprints littering the gray mesh. Jongdae, feeling dirtied in his place, suddenly lost his appetite. 

Yeol shifted in the corner of his cell, wide awake, eyes staring unyielding, engulfing Jongdae like wildfire; Jongdae not knowing when he had turned to the gentle giant for comfort. Yeol didn’t say a word, long limbs stretching, looking for space he didn’t have. Searching for something none of them had.

“What do we do now?” Jongdae broke the silence after a long while, at another impasse of many he’s been and yet to be through.

“We sleep.” Han didn’t hesitate, “We’ve got long days ahead of us.”

Following Han’s victory over his brother, their masters purposefully rejected his right to bathe. Three more days passed until he finally cleaned Hun’s blood from his hands. He didn’t flinch when he was hosed down. He thought bigger than all of this.