— the more we know the more confused we are — 

"You'll be working with Joe. Helping him with everything he needs. Usually, underground fight clubs don't have personal trainers but Fire Dragon is different. The better trained our guys are the more wins and the better reputation this club gets." Narong was walking fast, from spot to spot from room to room. It was supposed to be a more detailed excursion of the club because Narong was more than sure that Earth didn't do exactly the best job in showing Mix around, however, Mix right now thought that he knew less about the Fire Dragon than he knew before he even got there.

"Umm, I'm sorry but I might have some questions once in a while because I'm not entirely sure that I will remember everything you are saying here right now. But maybe..." Mix stopped walking and took out his phone, "maybe I can just write everything down."

"No!" Narong's hand was squeezing Mix's wrist tightly. "Everything I'm telling you here is only for your ears and your mind. Nothing about this club or the members of the club is allowed to be written... anywhere! This is an illegal business, buddy, remember? I don't need anything of what I'm saying to you being written somewhere."

"But it's just my phone," Mix smiled innocently. If Narong was bothered by Mix taking some notes on his phone then he sure as hell wouldn't appreciate the day Mix would release an entire article about this club. Fire Dragon had answers about Mix's father, but it was also an illegally ran fight club that shouldn't be existing at all. It was Mix's duty to get the club closed... as soon as he would have all the answers he was looking for.

"I don't care if it's just your phone, your hand or a piece of toilet paper; you are not writing down anything about this place!"

"Okay, okay. No writing down, I'm sorry," Mix put his phone back into his back pocket and followed Narong to the locker room. It wasn't like Mix needed to write things down, he just wanted to make some notes of things he thought could be helpful for his investigation and he really didn't want something to slip his mind. But fine, Mix could go without it. Not the first time he couldn't make notes right on the "scene" and yet he still pulled off a great piece of journalistic work — not his own words... Sierra's.

"You are starting tomorrow at 2.30. Earth should be here, doing some light workouts. He has had some trouble with his wrist recently so he is trying not to use it too much. He always goes all in when it comes to fights. He is most of the time in a hundred per cent condition but with that wrist injury he has been a little more cranky than usual, but I'm sure you'll be able to handle him. You two seemed to hit it off pretty well, yesterday."

Mix cocked his eyebrow, "I'm not sure whether you are serious or you are joking. I really hope you are joking."

"About Earth's wrist injury?" Narong grinned. "No, of course, not. It's serious."

Mix looked unimpressed, watching Narong with narrowed eyes.

Narong chuckled, "look, Earth is not so easy. It takes a lot of time and patience to crack his outer shell. You could say that he is a tough nut to crack. But once you do... you'll be glad that you did. Besides, you may think that you started pretty bad with him, yesterday, but at least he argued with you. Usually, he ignores new folks completely."

"Why?"

"He... has his reasons," Narong replied, his attention quickly turning towards the direction of the fighting ring from where he could hear a fight break out. "Great, they are fighting," he groaned, running out of the locker room.

"Wait wait," Mix caught up with Narong, "aren't they supposed to?"

"Today? At this hour? No, they are not."

The moment they got to the ring, Mix's eyes landed on Earth, leaning on the wall outside of the ring, he was smoking a cigarette and an uninterested look was decorating his well-crafted face. A small smirk accompanied by a chuckle greeted Mix and Narong when they stopped right next to him.

"Looks like someone is training without supervision." Earth cocked his head in Mix's direction, "assistant trainer... don't you want to step in? Make sure there won't be any unwanted injuries?"

Before Mix could say anything Narong yelled, "you have ten seconds to stop before I'm sending Earth in!"

Earth just shook his head, "nah, you are not. It's their business, not mine. If they want to beat the shit out of themselves... let them do it. Besides, I told you James is a problem." Earth looked at the ring where James was getting beaten up by Leo — a guy that on good days Earth considered a friend. "I think he is getting what he deserves."

The fight in the ring wasn't stopping. Leo wasn't afraid of Earth at all and James was too preoccupied to try fighting back to even consider Narong's words as a warning.

Narong approached the ring, swiftly getting in, "break it off. Now!"

Earth leaned closer to Mix, whispering an offer to his ear, "4000 Bahts that Narong will get it in his face."

Mix glared right at him, "are you nuts?!"

Earth just chuckled and then shook his head in disappointment right when Narong let out a painful wince and finally break off the fight. "Bummer, they already got him."

Mix looked back at the ring. Narong was holding his jaw, massaging a spot under his left cheek. He didn't look impressed. And Mix had to bite his tongue so as not to start laughing because as much as Narong looked pissed off at that moment he also looked funny with his pupils blown wide and hand still holding his face, while the other hand was accusingly pointing at the perpetrators of this violent crime. Narong truly looked like he didn't expect to get hit in the middle of a fight between two underground fighters who really didn't seem to like each other.

Mix was starting to create a picture of Narong in his head and it seemed to be miles away from how Mix had expected him to be. Mix couldn't decide whether that was good or not. All he knew was that it was confusing. And Narong wasn't the only one who was confusing him.

"So, is the fight over? Everyone is in one piece? Leo, you have a fight tomorrow, don't you?" Earth yelled towards the ring.

Leo jumped down from the ring, completely dismissing Narong's presence.

"Hey!" Narong shouted after him, "where do you think you are going? You can't just beat the shit out of him and not explain yourself!"

James was standing right next to Narong, a hand pressed to his ribs, his breathing shallow.

Leo shrugged, stopping right in front of Mix, but his next words still belonged to Narong, "didn't you hear our star? I have a fight tomorrow, I have to rest."

"Just take care of James," Earth told to Narong. "He looks like he has a broken rib or something. You can do your little investigation later."

"And you are our new assistant trainer," Leo said to Mix, left corner of his lip was curved in a smirk. Mix didn't like that smirk. It was as if Leo didn't believe that Mix could train them. It was as if he was about to challenge Mix in one way or another.

"Who exactly are you planning to train here? Barbies? Puppies? Unicorns?"

Mix's fist connected with Leo's face, sliding down from the bridge of his nose to his lips before, and Mix could figure out what exactly he just did it was over. He could hear Earth whistling right next to him and he could see Leo, chuckling while holding his bloody nose.

Think fast Mix, think fast.

He took a deep breath and after he made eye contact with Leo again, Mix said, "I'm here to train you!"

"You sure are," Leo replied. "Well, welcome to the Fire Dragon. I'm gonna forgive you this one, but try it one more time and you won't get out of here alive," Leo put a hand on Mix's shoulder and squeezed it. "Besides, I wasn't joking with the unicorns; my niece calls me that." With that, he was gone and Mix was left with so many questions and a painfully throbbing hand.

"He is fucking with me," Mix rolled his eyes.

"He isn't fucking with you," Earth took the last drag of his cigarette and threw it away. "His niece is five and when she was three, Leo gave her an unicorn plushie and since then she calls him uncle unicorn. And I'm gonna call you a dumbass."

"What?" Mix frowned.

Earth pointed at Mix's hand; the knuckles were a little bruised and Mix kept clutching and releasing his fist. "You've never actually punched anyone, did you?"

"No... but I shot them."

To be continued... 

P.S. who did Mix shoot? And when? And why? I would also like to know 🧐