Deserve [H.S.]

Chapter 2

FOCUS

It was a Saturday night, which meant Harry was working.

The term "working" for Harry meant standing in a boxing ring with black tape around his knuckles and sweat dripping down his shirtless torso. All of his tattoos that littered his skin appeared darker due to the sheen of moisture that had collected over his body. He had on some random basketball shorts and was pacing the ring opposite his opponent who was a little bit taller than him, as well as bulkier, but that just meant he was slower than Harry.

While Harry wasn't necessarily the biggest fighter, he was definitely strong and agile. He prided himself on his ability to read his opponents and not only anticipate their next moves, but also discover their weaknesses which he would then exploit.

Harry was a good fighter; he, as well as almost everyone who came to these fights knew that, but when his opponents were as big as this guy was, he knew he'd have to put a little bit more effort into the fight.

He was doing well so far, as he had dodged most of the hits his opponent had thrown, though a few did connect on his ribs and cheek. Harry had gotten more hits in, though, seeing as his opponent already had a black eye swelling which was impacting his vision.

Typically, Harry was the epitome of focus during his fights. He always noticed, internalized, and memorized every minuscule move his opponents would make. However, the one thing that kept entering his mind during this fight which shouldn't have was the fact that, the last fight, or, rather, altercation, he had been in was two nights ago and it was to get a sleazy guy away from Noah.

There was no denying the fact that Noah popped into his mind every now and then over the past two days. Harry hated to admit it, but he did find himself occasionally thinking of her. He hoped that her hand was okay.

Even now, while he was fighting, she came into his mind because he was thinking about the altercation on Thursday. He imperceptibly shook his head to try to focus his mind back into the ring, but he was distracted enough to not notice a right hook being thrown into his left cheek. He didn't have enough time to completely dodge the hit, so his opponent ended up solidly connecting the punch.

Staggering back and blinking his eyes a few times to regain focus, Harry was momentarily stunned from the hit. He had been hit harder before, but it had been a while since someone had gotten as heavy a hit on him as that one was. His opponent, naturally noticing Harry's momentary daze, had let his guard down very briefly.

Harry, however, took advantage of the fighter's lack of focus by throwing a solid punch to the left side of his face, followed by the right side with his other fist. Every punch was carefully calculated with deliberate puffs of breath being expelled from his heaving chest in time with each punch.

He felt sweat dripping down the side of his face, as the amount of people that were compacted into the abandoned warehouse made the overall temperature much higher than it should have been. The tape was tight around his knuckles, but he figured it was necessary given the fact that, without it, his knuckles would surely be split open with the amount of times they were connecting to this man's face and torso.

Harry kept pummeling punches into him, even getting some good hits onto his ribcage. He could tell the man was slowly losing strength and getting to a breaking point, but he didn't let up. After all, he wasn't the successful fighter he was by showing mercy.

One more solid hit was all it took before the man was dropped to the mat and unable to get up during the countdown which ultimately declared Harry the winner. The referee grabbed Harry's arm and lifted it up high, solidifying the victory with a loud, "once again, Harry Styles wins!" The entire crowd cheered and whistled loudly, as Harry had become quite a favorite amongst the people. Because of his high winning percentage, a lot of people would place their bets on him to win the fights. More often than not, he did.