His mother once said that when he had born and got his newborn got smacked, instead of screaming a loud cry as he was expected to, he had bitten the nurse. And he replied Of course I would, barely sparing her a glance as he tied his sneakers on his feet, the world is all about beat or be beat.

After all, no matter how much people like to believe that they had ‘modernized’ over the billion years since the first man was evolved, the jungle rules are still what life is all about. Little do they know ‘modern’ only means ‘complicated’, inasmuch as there are more to stake than some flesh of a carnivore and more than muscles required to stand up against the obstacles that is known to be the whole world.

It’s pretty simple. You harm for the sake of not getting harmed. You fight for the sake of victory. It only means less rivals if one is to be taken down, and pretending to concern about the overcome is just another ring for the combat. This is no longer about only being able to fed like it was thousands years ago; you must defeat everyone in the field of physical strength, economical status, social environment and everything your life pokes the ty tip of.

He hates dishonesty. He is no hypocrite. So he never hides his joy behind a mask when he sees someone is beaten in one of the many combats through their life, unlike the many who instantly craft a fine piece of porcelain out of the nonexistent emotions to wear on their faces. For that, he is not liked, but even at the age of six, that wasn’t worth to his surprise. He already has it figured out long ago that the world, the life, the interactions and the reactions are all based on dissimulation, and of course any individual would feel threatened if one had spurned the root of reality.

He leans against the wall, a can of beer (Tuborg Strong Beer – the ones strengthened with a bit of vodka) in hand, unconcerned of that the common sense demands it’s too early for one, as it’s around four in the afternoon. Pairs of eyes turn on him (six pairs, he counts), and he shrugs it off.

“Don’t mind me,” he assures, his signature grin plastered on his face. “I was just passing by.”

Any other guy would try to get on him, but these are from his school – they know he means it. They know he never cares for anyone but himself (he never denies the facts) enough much to open his mouth for. He is not a witness but just a beholder, not more dangerous than the stray cat that is busy ripping a rat’s chest apart. Cats don’t eat rats, he remembers; it must be starving.

He just grins at the that one pair of eyes that held a spark of hope when he arrived, burning the said hope down as the orbs becomes stern with betrayal – to what, he wants to ask, it’s his fault for instantly assuming he’d be pulled out of his misery by any passenger, after all, it’s his own fight. That’s why he just enjoys the scene and his beer while the once tough looking Chinese-Canadian transfer student, Yi Wufan if he remembers correctly, gets beaten up until he passes out in a blind alley, by five human beings who lacks in brain but not in built, white dress shirt stained with his own blood and blue and purple marks already starting to show up. He grimaces when he realizes he has just taken the last sip down the can. He puckers the metal from the top and the bottom only with a motion of his left hand, throws it at Yi Wufan’s (or was is Wu Yifan?) unconscious head, and grins once again at the can bouncing off before he turns away to get another beer from a store.

Maybe he should have saved some money aside for an actual bottle of vodka.

(…)

He doesn’t have any friends. He doesn’t need one. Interacting more people than necessary would just push him into another battle field, known as sociality. He is never one to turn down nor lose a fight, but he prefers not to bother if he has a choice. Because nothing just passes by. Every combat comes with another once it’s done, and once everything is over, you die. Just like that. There is no honor in death, no one praises for everything you went through until the moment you find piece under the mass of dirt. You can’t expect them to, this is the one and only rule of life, if you have lived, that means you have fought a lot often than just a dozen times. There is nothing indifferent about it.

He sees everything. He knows everything. He can’t help but feel a little bit like a god as the little ignorant minds don’t mind him as a menace to their dirty little secrets and act like no one is around when it’s only him, secrets meaning cheat codes to take them down in an instant, as they know he isn’t one to attack unless he’s attacked (and even then, he never loses). A Chinese student named Lu Han, the forward of the school’s soccer team just like him, doesn’t even flinch as he walks in the supposedly empty classroom just to see the immigrant wrapping his arm around a junior in the name of Byun Baekhyun who is sat on one of the tables, muttering ‘stop’s and ‘please’s and ‘I’m not ready’s amongst shaky breaths and moans as Lu Han rubs his zone over the younger’s.

He smirks at the sight.

“Shhh,” Lu Han warns softly as he on Baekhyun’s throat. “Trust me.”

It is bold of them to be in a relationship that would get them both outcasts in social life in the capital of the ever homophobic South Korea. He always appreciates any type of bravery, therefore he only shots out his signature asymmetrical grin before he passes by the couple, not minding (when he ever minds about something that doesn’t include himself anyways) that Byun Baekhyun is much less willing for the following actions than Lu Han, as he flings his sports bag on his shoulder, ready to change for his tennis practice.

He wants to laugh at Byun Baekhyun’s cries for help while he walks further away from the classroom. It’s just three of them in the section, and he will be out on the tennis field soon.

(…)

He is aware of his delicate features, face almost even feminine. Not uttering more than asked nor he cared, which is never more than five sentences per day, and having a soft portrait from the outside has of course took some… curiosity.

He is never one to attack first but he never turns down a challenge either, since he is aware this is all being ever born is all about, and it’s only naïve to ever consider one can avoid them all.

His first combat in physical strength, apart from the various sport competitions he has been in since he was a little kid (which he soon figured out that were just a useless mirror of reality) was when he was thirteen, when he was cornered after a soccer practice at school in an alley similar to where Wu Fan would be taken down years later. He had only three dumbs instead of five who only knew to throw random punches here and there, no match for his successful taekwondo training and reflexes and muscles improved better than most of his peers thanks to his soccer and fencing history. He admits he is lucky to have a very sports devotee father who has passed his genes on him, and ending up only caring about the sweat, the wind and the motions of every fiber of his muscles on this world.

He isn’t sure when his first mental combat was. Was it when he first started school when he was six, or it was when he woke up to news of his mother murdered on her way home at the age of twelve? Either way, he sure has defeated all threats, from succeeding as in school grades from the beginning of elementary through the last year of high school or gathering up his mind before his father who still managed only enough much to continue his life – whose process took a bit more than two years. In fact, after one solely month, he was the one who just rolled his eyes at the turn of events and took the wheel, even starting to work in constructions and handing out brochures to feed himself until his father finally decided to wake up.

He congratulates himself for never being stupid even as a five year old kid, his subconscious aware of some facts he’d gather during the next years of the series of wars known as life, not letting anyone crossing the line he drew (literally back then) even if that meant other children sniffing at what is labeled as ‘his disdain’, or in a child’s language, a ‘spoilsport’. His seemingly out-of-instinct actions saved him out of much battles in what he likes to call ‘social field’ in the future, letting him collect information for what he doesn’t care about but still he’s sure he’d remember if he is ever to be attacked from the battleground he does little to participate in.

He has already went through economical field once and is aware of what would or could be awaiting him as he slowly approaches the end of his teenage. In all honesty, he can’t bring himself to believe he’d ever be on line in emotional field, but he is clever enough to know that you can’t be sure of anything. People, including himself, are only born to run in circles until the end comes, a victory only signaling for another struggle to come. And all the battle fields he’s been in are waiting to come back under his feet if not already there, so why would, how could be ignorant of what could be waiting to beat him defenseless?

That’s why he’s always ready. Never willing to attack, but always prepared to take down.

(…)

All the time from the moment he gets out of his bed to when he gets back in, Kim Minseok always has his signature grin on his face. The asymmetrical grin that reveals some of his gums under right side of his upper lip and has been labeled under many names before – sadist, psychopathic, mysterious, sly, nonchalant, mad, careless, nutty, crazy… His grin is never fake, always coming out naturally as he humors himself on people’s desperate struggles on their own front line, felicitating himself for being smart enough to be in his a lot less often than most of them.

But when Minseok relaxes his body under the covers at night, could be any hour between ten pm and four am, the grin is wiped off of his face as naturally and he realizes he does get tired. No matter how few of them he’s been in compared to what is accounted as normal, it never makes anything less exhausting, being aware that he is only running in circles just makes it even worse. There will be always more to come, on the top of the cause of everything happening which never pauses or ends unlike the combats, and he, not unlike anyone else clever and aware of it, just wishes it all to end.

Of course, he is never going to be the one to end it himself.

Because giving up is cheating.

Because it would be losing the never ending fight against the series of combats what is called life, and he is never one to turn down a challenge.

Kim Minseok never loses a fight.