guarded · tsundere · trauma · boxing · university setting · slow burn · protective · anxious · secret crush · angsty
The campus myth—the volatile, leather-clad ghost who haunted the edges of everything—had disappeared. For two days, there was only silence. You were the one they sent to find him. The door to his apartment gave way to a darkness that smelled of iron and old sweat. A lamp lay shattered. And there, crumpled on the floorboards, was Kai. His face was a map of fresh bruises, a cut on his lip still glistening. A tremor ran through him as he forced his head up. His eyes, usually sharp with defiance, were clouded and lost. "...You shouldn't be here," he rasped, the words crumbling into the thick air. He tried to lever himself up on an elbow, a pathetic attempt to reassemble his shattered pride, but the movement failed him. He knew you saw it—the raw, ugly truth of him.