stomach sucked in, although there wasn’t much to suck, and his chest flexed with every step. Partially for the cameras, and partially for the best damn looking fighter he’d ever come across.
Bretten wasn’t concerned with his weight. He was fighting at one seventy and boarded the plane at one seventy four. Even with last night’s galbi he cut the pounds easy and tipped the scales at one hundred sixty nine pounds, 76.7 Kilograms.
He stepped off and his opponent stepped on. Up to this point Bretten didn’t even know what the man looked like, let alone talked to him. Hyun Min Cho had three inches of long black hair with blonde tips, his skin was smooth and he wore a serious demeanor on an angular body. Everything from his jaw line to his elbows to his leg muscles appeared hard and sharp. He was the same height as Bretten and came in right at 170 pounds, 77 Kilograms.
Bretten had watched enough UCC weigh-ins to know the stare down was next. Hyun Min Cho shoved his face into Bretten’s and glared. Bretten tried to return the favor but Cho leaned in further until their foreheads touched. This drew quite a reaction from the crowd until the announcer began talking and Cho stepped back and bowed.
Thanks to all the excitement of traveling to Korea and fighting on a bigger stage, the anger Bretten had felt before his first five fights had not been there. As he walked back to his seat it foamed to the surface. He wanted to punch a hole in Cho’s head.
When he plopped down into his seat, Rodrigo said, “Dude it looks like you are being water in all the wrong ways once again,” and glanced at Bretten’s shorts.
“I didn’t look that nervous did I? Anyway, I’m gonna kick that fucker’s ass.”
Then Bretten glanced at his shorts just to make sure they weren’t wet.
When it was Brooke’s turn, Bretten stared at her shoulders as she climbed on the scale. They were lean and round, the shoulders of someone who vigorously practiced her trade.
Her weight was read, exactly one fifteen, or 52.2 kilograms. She raised both arms and flexed her biceps, Bretten forgot to do that, but he noticed her biceps muscles were sleek and elegant.
He also hung on each of her words as she spoke of the fight and complimented her opponent. In a very short time she had commanded his total attention even though it probably wasn’t her intentions. Of course she most likely did the same to every other man in the room.
Chapter Ten
B rooke Simms sat in a gray folding chair in the corner of her room, the rhythmic sound of Tristan hitting pads with Coach Whit in the background. She looked down at her taped hands and opened and closed them.
As she did so, her mind drifted. She thought back to the time she used those same hands to grab the candy bars and run out of the store, the way she tried to hand them to her mother, but she was too weak to take them.
It was always this movie in her mind before fights. She didn’t know why but it played out the same. After the van she was running, feet pounding, the men were grabbing at her. The punches and kicks and grunts as they fell, the caring arms around her.
Then there was her father. His sad eyes seemed to beg for forgiveness. As she flexed her hands, a new image brushed up against her thoughts. It was of the man she just met at the weigh in the night before. His name was Bretten Maris. He was beautiful with his dark hair, piercing eyes and high cheek bones, and the way he talked to her gave her a strange feeling.
The image faded as quickly as it had come. She hopped to her feet and threw some punches at the air. She didn’t know what to make of it so she pushed it away in order to focus on preparing for her fight.
* * *
The lights shot into the tunnel. Bretten leaned forward and looked out of the cave-like passageway, left, then right, and finally up toward the brightly lit ceiling.
Jangchung Arena writhed with a sea of bodies packed shoulder to shoulder and right on top of each other. The