jaehyun "jae" choi || district four || cbd2 || fin

Jae's earliest memory of the cliffside is the sting of wood on his chest and the discomfort of rocks in his back.

Papa had always taken him there once he'd turned ten, six days a week armed with nothing but the clothes on his back and a pair of long wooden staffs that he claimed had belonged to his grandfather. A mile hike uphill from their modest home, it was a beautiful site, with nothing but the glittering ocean as far as the eye could see. In the future, once he'd come to see the cliffside for its true beauty and not solely the implications that traveling there had, he'd watched many a sunset disappear into the horizon from the vantage point on the edge of the world.

But before that, it wasn't just a place, but a never-ending trial. Papa, a retired Career who had missed his chance at the Games, was determined to mold his only child into his successor. Six days a week for hours on end, staff would clash against staff - and more often than not, against bare skin. And more often than not, Papa would look down on him, flat on his back, bruised and winded and shake his head in disappointment.

"Not good enough, Jaehyun," he'd always say. "Again."

Papa had passed a couple years past, from an illness that had swept through the village. But six years of routine were hard to break, even if these days he only ever swung the staff against thin air instead of a living, breathing opponent, until his shirt was stripped and sweat poured down sunkissed skin in torrents, the bite of the salty ocean air doing little to cool the flame that burned within.

And every time, with every swing, every clack of the staff on stone, the same words rang through his head, over and over.

Not good enough, they taunted. Again.