Chapter 3: Eun Ji takes Ashanti's bra as a trophy
The roar of the crowd was a physical thing, a pressure against Eun Ji’s skin as she stood posed with her foot on Ashanti’s chest. She tilted her face up, letting the sweat cool on her neck, and smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile. It was the expression of something sated.
The adrenaline began to recede, leaving behind a web of aches. Her ankle throbbed where Ashanti had twisted it. Her ribs screamed from the knee strikes. A deep, satisfying soreness radiated from her jaw. Each pain was a trophy, a receipt.
She finally stepped off Ashanti’s body, her heel leaving a faint imprint on the pale skin. She moved with a calculated slowness, savoring the moment, bending down to retrieve the item that mattered: Ashanti’s black bra. She held them up, one in each hand, letting the lace dangle for the crowd. They cheered again, a mindless, hungry sound.
They cheered again, a mindless, hungry sound. “We want the stash!” someone shrieked from the high seats. “Give us the stash!”
“Patience, pigs,” Eun Ji muttered under her breath. She lowered the delicate black cups, letting the bra hang from a single finger.
She then walked to Ashanti’s head. The arena fell into a hush of anticipation, broken only by scattered coughs and the hum of the stadium lights. She looked down at the lifeless form. Anger was gone from Ashanti’s face, replaced by an empty slackness. A faint curl of blood trailed from her nose. It made her look younger.Human. Eun Ji felt a twitch of something inconvenient. Irritation followed it. Sentiment was a blade you turned on yourself.
“You read books,” Eun Ji said to the corpse. “And look where it got you.”
She bent at the knees. Her leather bustier creaked with the movement. The cold arena floor was sticky under her palms. She grasped Ashanti’s ankles, the skin still holding the ghost-warmth of her final furious effort. The muscles in Eun Ji’s arms tightened as she began to pull, her stiletto heels digging into the slick chrome as she walked backwards. The body slid with a soft, unnerving shush across the polished stage. Ashanti’s head lolled. One arm dragged limply, knuckles scraping. The distorted acoustics of the pit amplified every sound—the hiss of flesh on metal, the soft thump as the corpse’s torso caught on a seam, Eun Ji’s own measured breathing.
It felt obscenely mundane, like hauling a heavy rug. The sheer weight of a person was always a surprise. Ashanti had been wiry, but inert mass multiplied in death. Eun Ji adjusted her grip, her fingers pressing into the cool tendons above the heels. A chunk of dark hair caught on the edge of the stage and stayed behind. She kept pulling.
The tradition was absolute. The winner placed the loser with the others. She backed toward the corner of the pit where the shadows seemed to gather darker, ignoring the rising chant from the stands that wanted the grisly relic. The cool draft from the duct near the body pile raised goosebumps on her exposed skin. The clutter of limbs and painted nails came into view, a haphazard sculpture of death and bad lighting.
She maneuvered the body parallel to the pile. With a final grunt of effort, she swung Ashanti’s lower half up and over, letting the torso fall onto the tangled mass with a heavy, wet sound of impact. One of Ashanti’s feet, shoeless, fell across the exposed waist of a platinum blonde: Anya, the arch of her foot perfectly aligned with the other woman’s hip bone as if they were asleep. It settled. It was done.
Eun Ji straightened up, smoothing the front of her sheer chemise. She plucked Ashanti’s discarded bra from the floor. The black lace was stark against her pale palm. Without a glance back, she turned and walked toward the only door, a seamless panel of brushed steel now sliding open into dimness. The crowd's noise began to diminish, becoming a muffled, chaotic hum. Her heels clicked on the ramp—a clean, solid sound, final and hollow. All that remained was the metallic scent of her own sweat, the worn elastic of a stranger's undergarment in her fist, and the quiet certainty of another room, another opponent, another fight waiting just past the thrumming threshold.