Sewers & Night Skies (a GOT7 fanfic)

Chapter 8

My legs had turned to jelly and I had to clutch the DJ booth for support. He killed her. Just like that, without hesitation. Maybe I was wrong to choose him. Maybe he should've gone to Jackson after all. Then he'd learn to be a cold blooded killer and Chun Ae would still be alive.

My legs suddenly gave away from underneath me, but JB caught me.

I shoved him off and grabbed his collar. ''Where's Jackson?"

He studied me quizzically. "Why? So you could try to punish him for something that would happen eventually anyway?"

My fist acted at it's own accord.

His hands kept me at bay, his face thoughtful. ''Natural selection. She would've died anyway.''

My rage took over and I kicked him full force in the shin, causing him to wince. ''She just lost her life! Because of him! He glared at me. ''Yes, yes I realised. But the boy, Hyun Ki...''

I screamed, drowning out whatever he said and he looked at me with disgust.

"Yoon Ah, would you look at yourself," he growled, suddenly annoyed." You think you are heartless and ruthless, but in reality you are just that, an innocent child. A child who can't cope with basic things like life and death and revenge. You're reckless, innocent and fairly stupid, and when you finally come to admit you possess these qualities, the sooner you can turn it into armor that can't be used against you."

My eyes started stinging and I realized that I have never truly hated anyone until that moment. But instead of turning away, I stared right into those wild eyes.

"Aye, I may be a child," I spat "but don't lecture me on life, death and revenge. I've faced all three. And it's not death that angers me. It's unnecessary murder."

Eden let out a loud laugh and shook his head pitifully. "My dear Yoon Ah, you still don't get it do you? Every death in the arena is unnecessary murder. Don't tell me that you never killed anyone here. When he was dying, did he not plead for his life? Was there fear in his eyes when they looked at you? Was there a will to live? He wanted to survive that fight. You took that from him...his life, without permission. You are a murderer. Just like me, Jackson, Hyun Mi. This arena is home to our kind. And all the blood that has been spilled on that sandy floor was wasted so unnecessarily. Don't lie to yourself and pretend to be a knight in shining armour. You are a killer. And you should accept it."

His words penetrated my mind very slowly and then all at once. I looked down at the concrete. "It was a she."

I turned on my heel and left him alone with the corpse of a young innocent child and his thoughts.

* * * * * *

I stayed in bed not eating or drinking for three days, pondering over JB's words. My conscience tried to deny them but my head made more sense of them every passing minute. I lay under the duvet, grief and guilt lapping at my mind. Sometimes it pulled me under to horrible nightmares. Those were better than staying awake and being haunted by the face of the girl I'd once stolen a life from. She had short golden hair and beautiful almond-shaped eyes. Eyes that I closed forever when I cracked her skull.

I constantly told myself that it wasn't my intention. It was the first battle I was allowed to use knuckles and I got carried away.

But it didn't help. My intentions weren't what killed her. My actions did.

And when she died, I remember the look on Dongwoo's face. Back then I thought it was a shocked kind of pride. But now I realised it was a shocked kind of disgust.

On the third day, Dongwoo stormed into my room and yanked me out of bed by my good arm.

"Get up you little shit. You have training to attend in twenty minutes. Your absence has been noted. And I need you in the trainee area after...we're in dire need of someone to demonstrate some good defensive kicks."

I nodded and he looked at me oddly. "You alright kid?" I nodded again and he sighed, sitting down on the bed and patting the space beside him.

"No you're not. You let me call you kid."

I looked at him sadly. "Maybe because that's what I am."

His only eye studied me thoughtfully. "What happened?"

"Hyun Ki killed Chun Ae. On Thursday in the arena, during a sparring session. I tried to stop him but he had his knuckles and he wouldn't and I..."

Dongwoo cut me off and pulled me into a tight hug just as my tears started streaming down my cheeks.

I tried to form words but my tongue became numb and my brain became foggy. Dongwoo chuckled quietly and pulled a small bottle of vodka out of his jacket, followed by two small shot glasses. He let me go, poured us each a shot and placed it in my trembling hand. " Drink. You'll feel better."

I followed the elder's advice and downed it, too miserable to even grimace as the strong spirit burned the back of my throat.

He downed his own glass, all while keeping his eyes glued to mine. I couldn't keep my thoughts to myself any longer.

"How can you live with it Dongwoo? How have you lasted all these years here, without breaking down like this? All this death, suffering...how are you not affected?"

He looked at me long and hard, his one eye betraying nothing, until he spoke.

"Z, I have broken down more times than I can count. My first five years here, I was convinced I was the devil reincarnated, with all the life I took. Every day, after the euphoria of a victory died, I would drown my misery with a bottle of cheap soju, disgusted at how I could willingly commit to this vile act of bodily harm and murder. During the day, my hit-list increased and so did the list of faces that haunted my dreams at night. Yet that didn't stop me or my famed brass knuckles. It was only six years in...a time I came face to face with death, that an epiphany dawned on me."

"Sara?"

"Sara."

"That fight is legendary."

"Aye it's legendary but it's not the fight I remember it for. Me and her, we were equal in every way that night, almost as though we were the same person. We could read each other's minds, allowing me to stop all her attacks and her mine. By the end of it, five songs had played and we were both so beaten and bloodied it was miraculous we could still kept going. But we did. By God, she did. Using her final efforts she swiped at my face with her claws, and I collapsed at her mercy, one eye gone and one blinded by blood. Everyone, even my own group, was certain that I was going to die that night."

"But you didn't."

"Yet here I am telling you this story. She kneeled over me then, as I lay sprawled in the sand and whispered in my ear; "I refuse to defeat you with you crawling in the sand like a kitten mewling for its mother. Get up." She wiped my good eye with her thumb, allowing me to see into her determined brown eyes. With the other hand, she picked me up by the collar and swung me halfway across the arena. I collided with a heap of barrels but she gave me strength and so I got up."

"Somehow, miraculously, I got her into a headlock, yet she couldn't fight any longer and she knew it. She just looked me in the eye and whispered "if I die, I die." There was no fear in her eyes, just the same determination that was there throughout the whole fight. She closed her eyes, a faint satisfied smile painted onto her face , and in an instant I snapped her neck. She collapsed a lifeless, yet smiling, doll onto the dust but there was neither a victorious feeling, nor a despairing one. Just a realisation that changed everything."

"You see Yoon Ah, a person who fully lives life is prepared to die at any given moment in time. True there is going to be fear in your opponents' eyes before the end, fear of the pain, fear of the unknown void that comes after. And yet we all die. It's just that those of us in the arena, we want to die how we have lived, fighting until we can't feel nothing but stinging pain and your own heartbeat pounding in your ears. We choose how we want the end to come, we choose to give it meaning. And that's more a choice than most people get. That night, I needed no cheap soju. Or any night after."

He downed another shot, all while looking at me and waiting for me to understand.