Calum Hood is a famous underground boxer that you dated when his career first started at sixteen. You hated boxing, hated the smell of sweat and metal and blood, but you tried to get over it for his sake because he loved it. You learned the rules. You waited outside dingy gyms with ice packs and worried eyes. You told yourself that loving him meant accepting the bruises, the split knuckles, the way he sometimes came home shaking from adrenaline.Back then, Lyric was the famous one.. A musician with songs climbing charts, her voice everywhere — radios in corner stores, playlists in gyms, late-night talk shows, viral clips passed around on cracked phone screens. Even in Calum’s world, in underground basements that smelled like rust and sweat, Lyric’s music found its way in. Fighters played her songs while wrapping their hands. Trainers left her albums on in the background between rounds. You were used to bright stages, soft lights, the hush of audiences holding their breath. You understood crowds that loved gently. Calum lived in the opposite world underground rings, flickering lights, people who didn’t cheer because they adored him, but because they were afraid of him. The contrast between the two worlds was jarring: Lyric’s name chanted in awe, Calum’s whispered in fear. You tried to exist between them. You tried to belong to both worlds.But you couldn’t do it forever.One night, after a fight that left him limping and bleeding through gauze, you told him the truth. That you couldn’t keep watching him get hurt. That every time he stepped into the ring, your chest tightened like you were the one being punched. You told him you weren’t going to stop him or ask him to change his dreams — but you couldn’t stay and pretend you were okay with losing him to a ring one day. So you broke up. It was quiet. Devastating. Final.Now you’re both twenty. You haven’t seen each other since.Until your friend drags you to an underground boxing match, promising it’ll be “fun.” You don’t want to go. The lights, the noise, the memories everything about this world makes your skin crawl. But after enough begging, you give in. The venue is packed, the air thick with smoke and sweat. When the announcer begins calling out the fighters, your nerves spiral for reasons you can’t explain.Then you see him.Calum Hood. Your ex-boyfriend.He’s changed. Broader shoulders, heavier muscle, scars you don’t recognize. He moves like someone who’s learned how to hurt people efficiently. But when he looks up, scanning the crowd before the fight, his eyes still have that same glimmer they had when he first started focused, stubborn, alive. Your heart stutters.Then he turns around.Your breath leaves you in a rush.Your name is inked across his back in dark, bold letters, carved into muscle like a promise he never meant to break. The sight hits you harder than any punch ever could.People don’t just cheer for Calum anymore they fear him. Whispers move through the crowd about how he ends fights quickly, He doesn’t swing wildly. Every punch is calculated. Controlled. When the bell rings, the air shifts, like a predator stepping into the light.You flinch with every hit he takes. With every hit he gives. This isn’t the boy who apologized for hurting your hand during play-fighting. This is someone dangerous. Someone the crowd worships because they’re afraid of him. You think of Lyric on stage, lights warm on her face, the way people cried when she sang — and the difference between these worlds feels impossible to bridge.Mid-fight, his eyes lift.They find you.His jaw tightens. For a split second, the cold mask cracks — shock, something raw flickering through his gaze. Then the bell rings again and he turns back to the fight, brutal and unstoppable, like he’s trying to prove something to the ring… or to you.The match ends fast. Too fast. His opponent goes down hard. The crowd erupts.You leave before you can think.You’re almost out when his voice cuts through the noise.Hey.”You turn. He’s close now, hoodie half-zipped over his bare chest, knuckles split and bloody, a cut blooming along his brow. The medic hovers behind him. He waves them off, eyes never leaving your face.You shouldn’t be here,” he says quietly.I didn’t know it was you,” you answer. “I wouldn’t have come.”You still stayed.”Your eyes flick to the edge of the tattoo under his collar. “Why would you do that?”Because you left,” he says simply.That’s not a reason.”It was to me.”The noise of the crowd hums behind the walls. You stare at his injured hands, fighting the instinct to reach for him like you used to.You’re dangerous now,” you whisper.His gaze hardens. “Yeah. I am.”Then, softer, almost breaking through the armor, “And you’re still the only person who ever made me want to be careful.”The space between you is heavy with everything you never finished saying. You don’t promise to stay. He doesn’t ask you to come back.But neither of you walks away.NO MANAGEMENT OR LABEL INVOLVED