mulan || ch

一

• one : honor to us all •

i walked down the cold, icy sidewalk that had cars lined up on either side of the road. the streets were pretty much dead since everybody was either inside their warm apartments or at work during a snowy thursday afternoon.

except for me. i didn't have a job which meant i couldn't afford to have a cozy apartment. money had always been a problem in my family, and i was extremely grateful to have good parents and a family that cared for me, but being dirt poor was pretty shit. i wanted to own more than three shirts at a time, i wanted to be able to treat myself once in a while, and most of all, i wanted to be able to help my father.

he was diagnosed with cancer, and unfortunately, it wasn't noticed early on. it had spread a lot and the hospital bills from chemo were jaw dropping. yeah, movies never talk about the thousands of dollars that you have to scrape up to pay for treatments and medicine.

i dropped out of high school as soon as i turned eighteen, so i already let my dad down. he deserved a good life, and i wanted to give it to him. i applied for tons of jobs in and out of town, but no decent paying job wanted some high school dropout who could barely pay the bus fare on rainy days.

one day when i was walking, i passed by two guys talking about some underground boxing ring at the corner of town underneath a run down bar, so as the insane person that i am, i decided to check it out one day.

so, there i was, a wimpy looking nineteen year old girl, walking to the sketchy side of town to try to start fighting for money.

once i got to the lightly blinking blue open sign of the clearly not open bar, i took a deep breath and entered through the old door. once inside, it looked like a regular bar minus people and plus a lot of dust. i walked up to the front and sat at one of the barstools, running my finger over the thick layer of dust on the bar. it didn't take long until i heard loud voices and saw that they were coming from the back.

i got up and slowly stepped to where the bathrooms were and saw a door that originally said 'STAFF ONLY BEYOND THIS DOOR', but it had been scribbled over in sharpie. I swung the door open and saw a staircase going down. the voices got louder the closer to the bottom of the stairs that i got, and soon i was met with the sight of a large boxing ring in the middle of a dimly lit room filled with a bunch of muscley men who were smoking.

i jumped when one of the guys in the ring was harshly slammed into one of the sides.

"and that's why you need to work on your blocking." the other guy in the ring said, and when i saw him, my breath got hitched in my throat. his body was incredible.. his large muscles were perfectly visible underneath his tan skin and i couldn't tear my eyes away from the beautiful boy. he had dark hair that was sweaty (along with the rest of his body) and dark brown eyes above his plump lips that were lightly panting.

he walked over to one of the sides to grab a towel and wipe off his forehead, and when he did, he looked up for a bit and almost immediately made eye contact with me. i looked away and untucked my hair from my ear so that i could cover my face. i walked beside the wall of the place, trying to lose the gaze of the dark haired boy that was still burning into me.

come on, mel, you're not here to be shy about some hot guy.

i took a deep breath and approached the closest guy.

"excuse me?" i asked, tapping his large muscled arm. he had a beard and seemed intimidating, but when he looked down at me, i could see how soft his eyes were. "hi.. i was just wondering, like, is this a betting thing?" i asked, pointing to the ring.

"right now that smaller dude is getting some final training for the big fight tonight, but yeah, it's a 'betting thing'." he chuckled, and i nodded, slightly blushing. "it's big money."

"really?" the sound of 'money' made my ears perk up like a dog.

"oh, yeah. it can go up to thousands."

"uh, do.. do, or can, girls fight here?" i asked.

"girls can't fight." another voice laughed from behind me. i turned to see the tanned boy from inside the ring with a towel over his shoulder. i was taken aback by his sexist comment and i furrowed my eyebrows.

"what do you mean 'girls can't fight'?" i asked, crossing my arms. "girls are perfectly capable of fighting."

"whatever, babe."

"i'm not your babe."

"girls aren't allowed to fight here, babe." he smirked at me, stepping closer.

"calum, come on." the bearded guy scoffed, shoving the rude guy who i now knew as calum lightly.

i turned on my heel and got out of there as fast as i could.