Chapter 283: A Slow Fight, A Steady Fall

Round four comes and goes with almost no change in flow. Kenta moves the same way he did in the second and third rounds: calm, steady, emotionless.

He’s not running, not stalling. What he does is just… boxing, in the most unsettlingly tranquil way possible. His jabs tap out like a metronome.

Park tries to break the rhythm, but each attempt crumbles into mist.

He charges? Kenta steps aside, taps him with a jab, and resets.

He tries to counter? Kenta’s already shifted angle, jabbing from another direction.

He attempts to force a brawl? Kenta clinches, breathes, lets the referee split them, and returns to his soft orbit.

The crowd, which had roared through the first round, now sits in a strange mood, caught between fascination and boredom.

A cheer finally swells as they see Kenta suddenly fires a sharp one–two…

Dsh, DSH!!

Park blocks, bracing for escalation, but Kenta immediately eases back into his slow steady pulse, drifting sideways like nothing happened.

And the crowd deflates again.

One commentator tries to prop the moment up. “Beautiful timing from Kenta! Wait… he’s going back to that calmer pace…”

Another adds, trying to sell excitement that isn’t there. “He’s, uh, controlling the tempo. Very… tactically. Very deliberately.”

“That uncertain man from the opening round is gone. What’s in front of us now is a quiet veteran.”

“Polished by years of work, fewer fights than most, but far more time spent perfecting every inch of his craft under the gym lights.”

In the cheaper seats, the fans exchange confused looks. Every spark of violence ends so quickly it feels like a tease.

“Is he gonna go off now?”

“Nope… Just look! He’s walking again.”

“Does he want to fight or not?”

***

In round five, the pattern continues.

Park comes out aggressive, jaw tight, shoulders stiff, eager to take back the control of the fight.

His coach had scolded him between rounds, “Break that rhythm or you’ll lose this fight doing nothing!” So now he charges with renewed fury.

He throws a heavy jab. But Kenta just parries, steps to his left.

He throws a right cross. Kenta blocks, slips half a step, and resets the distance.

He flurries. Kenta clinches, waits, exhales on the break… and returns to orbit.

And again, one commentator remarks, voice unsure. “I… I don’t know how to call this. Kenta’s not dominating with power or speed. It’s just pure control.”

Another adds, “It’s like he’s draining Park without throwing big punches. Just wearing him down with distance and rhythm.”

“But this is still a Nakahara’s fighter, folks! Very technical! Very… uh… defensive… but technical!”

“Just don’t blink, or you will miss it.”

***

Every now and then, Kenta breaks character. There’s a sudden shift, a crisp combination,

a tight hook into Park’s ribs, then a cross upstairs.

Bug, dsh!

And the crowd surges…

“YES! HERE WE GO!”

But Kenta steps back out of range again, slips into his neutral bounce, jabbing lightly as if he’s erasing the moment from existence.

Park’s frustration grows deeper each time. He tries to roar forward. He tries to brute force the pattern, tries feints, tries setting traps.

But nothing works. He’s trapped in Kenta’s rhythm, a rhythm that offers no handholds.

By the halfway mark of round five, Park’s irritation transforms into something worse: resignation.

His movements grow more predictable, guard opening in odd angles whenever he tries something reckless.

A jab flicks his nose.

Dsh!

Another touches his forehead.

Dsh!

Then a short cross meets his glove with a thud.

Dsh!

The commentators latch onto it:

“Kenta’s hitting at will now.”

“Still light shots, but they’re landing clean.”

“And Park… looks lost.”

The audience doesn’t cheer loudly anymore. They hold their breath, waiting for the real fight to begin, and it stubbornly refuses to appear.

Near the end of the fifth round, Kenta smothers Park’s final attempt at aggression with another smooth, effortless sequence: a jab, a pivot, a step-in body shot…

Bug!

…and then a small clinch.

Park can sneak a few compact punches. But Kenta can also do the same, until the ref break them apart.

Park pushes his luck again, crashing forward the moment he sees space, trying to force Kenta into another close-range exchange.

Dug, dug!

Bug, dug, dsh, bug!

And the bell rings…

DING!

…with the crowd releasing a confused mixture of applause, sighs, and unsure murmuring.

The commentators try to rescue the moment:

“Well, folks, Kenta Moriyama is quietly building a lead here.”

“Quietly is right. Park hasn’t been able to break that rhythm at all.”

But they still fail to spark any real excitement.

***

In the blue corner, Yun Tae-Hwan snaps the towel against Park’s shoulder, his temper already fraying.

“Stop letting him lull you! This isn’t a damn dance!”

But deep inside, Park already knows the truth: He can’t simply break Kenta’s slow disinterested rhythm.

“I’ve tried,” he pants between breaths. “I really tried. But… I…”

The rest dies in his throat.

It isn’t just that he failed to break Kenta’s rhythm. He can’t even read it. He still doesn’t know what Kenta is doing, what invisible thread keeps pulling the pace away from him.

Yun drags a hand across his bare scalp with a long, frustrated scratch. He’s fed Park three different strategies across three rounds, three clean workable plans, and none of them landed.

The strange part, the one he can’t quite swallow, is that they started this fight certain they had the advantage. Certain Park was the better fighter.

***

Meanwhile, in the red corner, the mood is even stranger. Kenta sits down with no joy at all. He shows no pride, no rush of momentum, because he finally feels the grim heaviness settling deeper into his shoulders.

Nakahara wipes the sweat from his face, trying to inject some energy into the corner.

“Good work. That was clean, flawless rhythm. You controlled everything.”

But Kenta shakes his head slowly.

“…My hands,” he mutters. “They feel so heavy now.”

The team blinks at him, puzzled.

“Did he hit you somewhere?” Hiroshi asks.

Sera leans in. “Park Hyun-seok snuck quite a lot of punches in the clinches. But… I don’t think that should slow you down like that. There’s hardly weight behind them.”

Their confusion deepens. They know Kenta’s durability. The man can take punishment most welterweights wouldn’t walk away from. And yet, he looks genuinely worn.

And then, Nakahara’s expression hardens. He is the first to piece it together.

“Don’t tell me… you had heavy work at the shop this morning.”

Kenta takes a long breath, and then nods.

Nakahara’s jaw tightens. “I told you… don’t push your body on fight day. Now you see what it did…!”

But he cuts himself off. His anger collapses into something quieter, understanding the corner he knows Kenta is trapped in.

Sera watches both men, confused.

“What’s going on?”

Hiroshi answers before Nakahara can. “It’s an old issue. Kenta’s dad never backed him. Never treated boxing as something worth protecting.”

Sera stiffens. The words hit him in the chest, too close to home. He knows how it feels, because he also abandoned his own career for the same issue.

Hiroshi continues, eyes still on Kenta. “He has three losses and one draw. And the funny part… All of them were fights he entered with fatigue.”

They’re ahead on the cards after dominating the last four rounds. Yet the mood in the corner feels bleak, overshadowed by the memory of Kenta’s past losses.

***

The sixth round begins. Kenta rises from his stool with a controlled breath, but his arms hang heavier than before, the looseness of his shoulders now dulled by fatigue.

He walks out steady, but the weight in his stride is unmistakable.

Park doesn’t notice it yet.

But Frank Donovan does.

“He looks… off,” he mutters, eyes narrowed. “Only five rounds in, and his stride’s already heavy.”

He turns to Marcus. “He hasn’t taken any real damage, right?”

Marcus lifts a brow. “Could be a poor weight management. Happens more often than fighters admit.”

Frank’s gaze returns to Kenta, dismissing the idea almost as quickly as it’s spoken. Kenta’s frame is clean, his conditioning solid.

This isn’t the body of someone who struggled through a weight cut.

No… this is something else.

Something that shouldn’t be happening this early.

His eyes drift toward the red corner again, toward Nakahara, toward the team he’d assumed was competent, polished, maybe even exceptional. But now he isn’t so sure anymore.

“What a waste…” he murmurs. “He’s boxed beautifully. But I don’t think he can hold that beauty much longer.”

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