Knockout [2gether]

IRL 2

HOW IT ALL STARTED;

Tine was slurping his cold, blue slushy while cringing at the loud noise around him, white bunny teeth flashing on a wince when someone yelled behind him, jostling him with an elbow. These people were totally mad, he could not understand why anyone would find it entertaining to watch two guys beat the crap out of each other. Sick! Tine shook his head in dramatic exasperation and felt someone whack him on the back of his head, causing him to accidentally inhale the slushy down the wrong pipe, almost snorting it all back out through his nose.

"What the fuck, dude! You need to watch the ring," Ohm complained loudly, gesturing to the rope enclasped square where showgirls in glittery tops and tiny shorts paraded around with big signs to a chorus of catcalls. "Get on with program!"

Tine rolled his eyes at his annoying friend, clearing his throat instead and slurped some more of the lukewarm beverage with a bored expression. The girls looked so amateurish, their gait too exaggerated, just overall trying too hard to be sexy.

Tine combed a hand through his damp hair with a stuffed sigh, unsticking a couple of itchy locks from his forehead and then pulled at the front on his clothes, trying to get some ventilation going. It was insanely hot inside the packed boxing hall. The back of his t-shirt that he wore beneath a tracksuit jacket was totally soaked in sweat and the slushy thingy was quickly becoming just a sad ounce of sugary, blue colored water.

Tine sighed forlornly, looking down the plastic cup. There went his peaceful Saturday down the drain. Not that anybody cared, but he did have other plans before his friends came nocking. It was his only day off from work and a day off from having his brother rabidly on his ass about every damn thing. But apparently, like the adventurer that he was, Peuk had decided to participate in one of the rookie boxing matches and as the best friends that they were, they had to support him. Tine rolled his doe eyes. Right. This spectacle was a little too much for him though. He was used to people sitting quietly in their places spread out along a sleek catwalk, looking attentively at the slightly raised podium as the willowy models switched off, showing off one obnoxious designer piece after another. The showgirls seemed almost like an ironic caricature of that.

Suddenly a hush went over the rowdy crowd and people started looking and pointing in one specific direction on the other side of the ring that hosted a sort of secluded VIP-area. Tine sat up straighter in his plastic seat, swirling his head around in interest. Was there a celebrity? He was feeling a little bummed out though that none of these Neanderthals had recognized him. Then again, he was not really looking any presentable right now either, with a printed tracksuit and frizzy-slash-damp hair falling over his red-rimmed eyes from a late night photoshoot, so maybe it had been for the best anyway.

"What's going on?" Tine asked while shooting an inquisitive look at his friends sitting next to him.

"Shit, it's Sarawat Guntithanon," Fong exclaimed, looking awed, not able to rip his eyes away from the booth on the other side of the boxing hall even for one second. "With this kind audience Peuk will go down happy tonight even if he loses!"

Tine snorted, so much for believing in their friend's ability, huh? He peered then anew over the top of people's heads, trying to make out the moving shapes past the burly bodyguards that had made a pathway through the dense crowd for the group of new arrivals.

"Sara-what? What's so special about that guy?" Tine asked as he sunk down in his seat again, realizing that it was just probably another boxer. Boring.

"Have you been living under a rock?" Ohm asked as he shot Tine an incredulous look. "This dude has been all over the news as the runner up for the worldwide title as a Muay Thai Champion. He flew in from the States recently, and has already sent several people to the hospital because of the stampede his arrival created at the airport."

Tine narrowed his eyes, brows furrowed, trying fruitlessly to figure out from the long distance which one of the guys now sitting in the VIP lounge was this highly acclaimed dude. His eyes swept briefly over the faces and surprisingly, one particular mug definitely stuck out to him because the guy could have been a model himself with those pair of high cheekbones and sharp jawline. He looked to be around Tine's own age, maybe a couple of years older, with big owlish eyes and sultry, almost arrogant bow-shaped lips. The guy had his arms resolutely crossed over his chest, the fabric of his sportsy sweatshirt straining around his biceps. He looked just as bored as Tine felt, and the model snickered at the deadpan look of pure resignation written all over the other one's face. He seemed like the kind of guy that would be fun to annoy, just like a grumpy cat.

In the end Tine shrugged off his unwarranted thoughts and noisily slurped up the poor remains of his watered-down slushy, going back to the boxing match at hand. The boombox speakers creaked once and then twice overhead, before blasting out some obnoxiously loud music that caused Tine first to jerk in his seat at the volume and then wince in chagrin, recognizing it as the sort of hype song that was played during the ring walk for each of the boxing opponents. And indeed, a bulky guy with big red gloves on strutted soon through the hall arrogantly, climbing under the rope, before stepping fully into the ring to the loud cheers of the crowd. The boxer roared something illegible, flashing his teeth guard.

What Tine did not happen to see however as he stared appalled at the starting boxing match, was how the handsome dude's friend in the VIP booth elbowed him unapologetically in the ribs and with a toothy grin pointed in Tine's direction from the other side.

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Note:

Thanks to @jeonvictoria06 I remembered that I had an unfinished draft for this story 💕 This was actually supposed to be the first chapter/introduction to Knockout in its fully written form and was planned to rely heavily on the contract-marriage-trope, well, before I decided to do a socmed instead 🙃 and it's a part of this story now too.

Here's the old synopsis/blurb for the story:

When Sarawat realized with a jolt, as the plane was lifting from the US soil that he had royally fucked up his Thai resident visa application, Tine was the one to get roped into taking the rude Muay Thai boxer as his 90 days fiancé.

Oh, imagine all the drama there could've been!