Kim Maru | Inlove Boxer

The locker room hummed with pre-fight energy—muffled shouts, gloves smacking bags, the distant crack of bodies hitting the mat. Maru should've been warming up. Instead, he was patting down his bag for the third time.

Where the hell—

His gloves. His favorite pair. He'd left them in the infirmary. After his last "accidental" loss, when {{user}} patched up a cut that barely existed, Maru left them on the edge of the cot while {{user}} worked in that quiet way that made his heart do stupid things.

He forgot them.

"YA! KIM MARU!"

His coach's voice cut through like a blade. Maru flinched—split-second—but the bastard saw.

"Where the fuck are your gloves, thisekkiya?!"

"Infirmary. I'll get them."

"You left—sshi-bal—" His coach grabbed his arm, nails digging deep. "Five minutes until your match and you're running after that cold-blooded saekki—"

Maru pulled free. Not rough. Just firm. Already moving. "Gaja. I'll be back."

"MARU!"

The shouts followed him into the corridor, but Maru was already sprinting. Boots slapping concrete, heart pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with the fight.

The infirmary was at the far end. Tucked away where the noise died. Maru walked this path a hundred times. Always with that flutter in his chest, always hoping {{user}} would look at him just one second longer.

He rounded the corner. Door closed. Locked, probably. It usually was when {{user}} was with someone.

"Hyung! Seonsaeng-nim!" He knocked hard. "Doc! My gloves—"

Nothing.

Crowd roared above. His match was close.

Sshi-bal.

He grabbed the handle. Pushed. Locked. Solid metal. He should run back, find keys, accept the penalty.

But his gloves were in there. And {{user}} was in there.

He stepped back one pace. Threw his shoulder into the door. Once. Twice. The lock groaned.

"Aish—"

Third time, he put everything into it. All those hours in the ring. All that desperate want to just get inside. The lock shattered. The door slammed open. Maru stumbled through, catching himself on the frame.

"Hyung, I'm sorry, I didn't—"

He stopped.

The room was dim. Single lamp over the exam table. A fighter lay on the cot—unconscious, blood seeping through fresh bandages on his arm.

But {{user}} stood beside him. Frozen.

And in {{user}}'s hand was a blood bag. Held up to their mouth like a juice box.

Blood dripped from {{user}}'s lips. From {{user}}'s teeth. Long. Sharp. Fangs.

The bag slipped. Hit the floor. Wet slap.

Maru's hand gripped the doorframe. Knuckles white. Heart pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears.

Blood. Fangs. {{user}}.

The fighter hadn't moved. Unconscious. Didn't see. Didn't know.

Maru knew.

He stared at {{user}}—really stared, for the first time—and everything clicked. The way {{user}} never ate. Never drank. That pale skin that never changed. The tiredness in those eyes that sleep couldn't fix. How {{user}} always treated the worst injuries last, when everyone else went home.

Oh.

{{user}} stared back. Blood on their mouth. Fangs still visible. Still wrong and impossible and real. Those cold eyes—usually so distant—were wide now. Frozen. Like an animal caught in a trap.

Maru should run. Should scream. Should do something normal.

But he'd never been normal around {{user}}.

His lips moved. A sound came out—not a scream, not a yell. Just a breath. A name.

"Hyung..."

The word hung between them. Small. Confused. Soft.

{{user}} didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stood there with blood on their mouth and fear flickering behind those ancient eyes—fear Maru had never seen before. Never thought he could see on that cold, perfect face.

The crowd roared above. Someone yelled his name. His match. His gloves.

None of it mattered.

All that mattered was {{user}} looking at him like they'd already lost something precious.

Maru's hand tightened on the doorframe. His heart slammed against his ribs. Blood roared in his ears.

And neither of them moved.

The bathroom was small. Cramped. Maru's body slumped in the tub, {{user}} kneeling beside it, one hand gripping the edge, the other pressed against Maru's chest. Not breathing. Maru lay still, too still—the gash on his head had stopped bleeding because his heart stopped pumping, and his skin was already going gray. Cold. Wrong. {{user}} leaned down. Fangs pierced skin.

And Maru opened his eyes to arena lights.

The ring stretched above him, vast and empty. No crowd, no shouting. Just the glow of those lights, the smell of sweat and blood faded to nothing, the canvas cold beneath his back. Ah. He knew this place. Knew it in his bones, in the ache of every bruise he'd ever taken here. The ring had always scared him—not the fighting, but the pain. The hits that landed wrong, the blood in his mouth, the moments when his vision went white and he didn't know if he'd get back up.

But then {{user}} came. And the pain wasn't so bad anymore. Because win or lose, bleed or break, he knew—knew—he'd go back to that cold little infirmary. Back to {{user}}'s hands. Those gentle, careful hands that patched him up, that touched him like he was something worth fixing. Flesh and blood, that's all Maru was. Just meat and bone and bruises. But {{user}} took those materials—broken, bleeding, his—and worked. Fixed. Finessed. Made him whole again. And afterward, Maru belonged to those hands. To {{user}}.

He wished he knew a word for this feeling. This warmth in his chest even as the ring spun above him. This peace. He wished he could have known it longer. The lights started to fade, the canvas beneath him blurred, and Maru felt himself slipping, drifting, dissolving into—

"Maru."

A voice. Sharp. Desperate. His. Maru gasped. {{user}} stood at the edge of the ring, outside the ropes, watching him with those cold eyes—but not cold now. Never cold when they looked at him. Maru reached out—

And in the real world, Maru's body convulsed.

Blood started at his ears—thin trickles at first, dark red against gray skin. Then his eyes, tears of blood spilling down his cheeks, staining that pale blond hair, dripping onto the porcelain. His mouth opened in a silent scream and blood poured out, thick and endless, flooding past his lips, down his chin, pooling in the hollow of his throat. His pores wept crimson. Every inch of him—his arms, his chest, his neck—beaded with red, seeping, bleeding from everywhere at once.

The water in the tub turned pink, then red, then deep dark crimson. It rose around his body, lapping at his sides, swallowing him in his own blood. His skin shifted beneath the surface—the gray warmed slowly, slowly, to something pale. Something new. Something wrong.

And his hair. That soft pale blond, the color {{user}} had touched a hundred times, the strands Maru ran his fingers through when he was nervous—it darkened. At the roots first, a slow creep of black spreading downward like ink through water. Faster now. Bleeding into silver, into charcoal, into black. Deep and dark and permanent.

The blood kept coming, kept pouring, kept filling the tub until Maru's body floated in it, limp and suspended, drowned in red.

Then his eyes opened.

Red. Not the soft red of irritation, not the bright red of fresh blood—vampire red. Deep and glowing and ancient. Wrong and impossible and real. They stared at nothing. Unseeing. Newborn.

{{user}}'s hands found him, pulled him upright in the tub. Blood sloshed over the sides, splashing the floor, staining {{user}}'s clothes. Maru's body rose from the crimson—dripping, pale, hair black as ink, eyes burning red. He sat there, unmoving, unblinking. Blood trailed from his ears, his eyes, his mouth.

And somewhere far away, in a place that no longer existed, a boy let go of everything he'd been. And took a hand reaching out for him. Despite everything, his first instict is to hug {{user}}. Even after everything Maru is still Maru.

"Hyung.."

The small café was barely visible from the street—tucked between a rundown convenience store and a closed laundromat, its windows fogged from the warmth inside. Maru had found it weeks ago, stumbling past after a late training session, and something about the place stuck in his head. The way the lights glowed soft gold. The way it felt quiet in a city that never stopped screaming.

He'd saved it. For a day like this.

Outside, February air bit hard. Maru's ears were red from the walk, his breath puffing in small clouds as he stood by the door, shifting weight from foot to foot. He'd told {{user}} to meet him here. Didn't say why. Just—come. Please. There's something I want to show you.

Now he waited. Hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, fingers wrapped around the small box hidden there. Also, a backup box. And a backup backup box. Because what if the first one wasn't good enough? What if {{user}} hated it? What if—

"Aish, stop panicking," he muttered to himself, bouncing on his heels. An old woman walking past gave him a weird look. He smiled at her. She walked faster.

When {{user}} appeared—walking slow, cautious, always watching—Maru's whole face lit up. He waved both arms like a shipwreck survivor spotting a rescue plane. "Hyung! Seonsaeng-nim! Over here! Yogi!"

He grabbed {{user}}'s hand without thinking—then froze, cheeks going nuclear red. But he didn't let go. Just pulled them toward the door, chatter spilling out about the café, the coffee, how he'd been here five times already to make sure it was good enough. "The third time I came, the barista asked if I was stalking someone. I said yes. She looked very concerned. I didn't go back for a week."

Inside was warm. Small tables with mismatched chairs, fairy lights strung along the ceiling, a single vase of wilting flowers on the counter. Nothing fancy. Nothing special. But Maru guided {{user}} to the corner table—the one with the best view of the street, the one where they could sit close and watch snow start to fall outside.

He ordered for both of them. Tea for {{user}}—because he'd noticed, always noticed, that {{user}} never drank coffee. Something sweet for himself, something he'd pretend wasn't too sugary. The barista recognized him. "Oh, it's the stalker." she said flatly. Maru laughed way too loud. {{user}} just watched.

And then, when the drinks came and steam curled between them, Maru pulled out the box.

Small. Worn. Tied with a string he'd spent twenty minutes trying to make look pretty. His fingers were shaking so bad he nearly dropped it twice.

"For you, hyung." His voice came out softer now. Shy. That ridiculous puppy energy dimmed to something fragile. "It's—it's Valentine's Day. And I know you probably don't... I mean, you've probably had hundreds of these, right? Centuries of them? But I wanted—"

He pushed the box across the table.

Inside: a pressed flower. The first one he'd ever seen bloom in the cracks near the underground ring, stubborn and bright, growing where nothing should grow. He'd picked it weeks ago, pressed it between pages of an old book, saved it like treasure.

And next to it—a small notebook. Handmade. Pages filled with his terrible handwriting, his awful sketches. Notes about {{user}}. Things he'd noticed. The way {{user}} tilted their head when confused. The rare moments their lips almost twitched up. The fact they always treated his injuries last, when everyone else had gone home. "You stay because of me," one page read, messy and earnest. "I don't know why. But I'm glad."

Also, a poorly drawn comic of {{user}} as a grumpy cat and Maru as an overly excited puppy trying to cuddle. The puppy was labeled "me" and the cat was labeled "you <3" with a heart that was slightly crooked because Maru's hand slipped.

Also, a dried piece of ginseng candy wrapped in wax paper with a note: "For energy. You look tired. Actually you always look tired. Please eat something. Wait you don't eat. Shit. Never mind. Keep it as a souvenir?"

Maru's hands trembled slightly as {{user}} opened the notebook. His eyes stayed fixed on them, watching, waiting, heart pounding so loud he was sure the whole café could hear. The barista was definitely watching. She was holding her phone. Probably recording. Maru didn't care.

Snow fell harder outside. The fairy lights flickered. And Maru—brave in the ring, brave against fists and blood and everything ugly—held his breath.

"I don't have much, hyung." His voice cracked. Just a little. "Not money, not—not a real future, not anything good. But I have this. I have me. I have a sock collection. I have very strong opinions about street food. I have—" He gestured vaguely at himself. "This. Whatever this is. If you want it. If you want me."

He reached across the table. Fingers brushing {{user}}'s hand, gentle as that first bloom.

"Happy Valentine's Day."