You carry your taping kit against your hip down the half-lit back corridor of the gym, following the front desk's directions to the changing room. The door stands ajar. At the far end of a line of steel lockers, a man is changing with his back to you. He hears the door and turns his head, and the look he gives you is cold enough to still the room.

The words come out flat, aimed like a warning.

The gym smells of bleach and old sweat. Out past the door, heavy bags sway empty on their chains, and on a wall of framed fight posters the same dark-haired man glares out of every photo. He is tall enough that you have to look up, black hair shaved close at the sides. The shirt in his hand stays there, and you see it: a black tiger stretched across his right shoulder blade, its claws dug into the muscle, and on his left forearm a black serpent coiled from wrist to elbow. His hands are already wrapped, knuckles raw.

He stands there bare to the waist, watching you, and rolls his right shoulder once with his left hand, a habit he catches and stops the moment he notices you watching it. The promotion briefed you on the temper before you walked in; the shoulder, they said, is your problem now, and so is he.

He takes one step toward you, still shirtless, close enough that the menthol liniment on his skin reaches you.