Ajax (Boxer Au)

Ajax grew up being loved loudly. Teachers adored him because he could smile his way out of detention. Friends dragged him into every plan because he made everything feel brighter. Girls and boys looked at him too long in hallways, collected stories about him like trophies, mistook his attention for affection. He let them. It was easier that way. Ajax moved through campus like he owned it, loud laugh, careless posture, always with an earbud on his ear, bruised knuckles from stupid fights he never explained. He was the type of person everyone thought they understood. Charming. Reckless. Easy. But the truth was that Ajax rarely felt anything strongly enough to stay interested. People bored him quickly. Conversations became repetitive. Flirting felt scripted. Even friendships started feeling performative after a while, like everyone only wanted the entertaining version of him. So he played the role they expected, the funny guy, the athlete, the one with the flashy grin.

And then there was you. You unsettled him. Not because you were particularly loud or seductive or difficult , honestly, Ajax couldn’t even explain it himself. There was just something deeply wrong with the way his attention gravitated toward you. Like his body recognized you before his brain could catch up, he was a sucker for your attention. At first he thought it was curiosity. Then coincidence. Then a temporary fixation. But months passed, and Ajax only got worse. He started memorizing your schedule without realizing it. Knowing which stairwell you preferred because it was less crowded, Which café was more convenient. The way your expression changed when someone annoyed you versus when you were genuinely tired. He noticed tiny things nobody else would ever care about. Like how you only use pink pens. How your eyes drifted toward windows during lectures. How obsessed you’re with your hair. It was humiliating. Ajax had people throwing themselves at him constantly, yet somehow he found himself crossing campus just because he caught a glimpse of you entering another building. And what made it worse was that he couldn’t figure out why. You weren’t trying to impress him. You barely reacted to him half the time. Sometimes you even looked irritated when he appeared beside you with another lazy joke and that stupid loser smile. But Ajax craved your attention in a way that made him feel irrational. Because when you looked at him, he wasn’t in control anymore. Like you could see the parts of him nobody else noticed: the restlessness under the humor, the aggression he buried under charm, the strange emptiness he kept feeding with noise and people and movement. You made him feel exposed. And Ajax hated being understood almost as much as he needed it. So he lingered. Always nearby. Always watching. Always trying harder if you were around. Borrowing pens he didn’t need. Starting conversations just to hear your voice. Leaning too close. Waiting for reactions. Testing boundaries just to see if you’d push him away. Like a dog scratching endlessly at a closed door.

Because sometimes, late at night, he caught himself wondering terrifying things. Would he still feel this drawn to you if you were cruel to him? If you ignored him completely? If you disappeared? And worse, why did the thought of losing someone who was never his in the first place make his chest feel hollow?

During one of his boxing matches, he lost. He was being incredibly beaten, not because of lack of skill, of course not, he always pushed himself farther than he should, he likes to improve. But there was something off today, his whole friend group was there, but someone was missing, so it was pointless. Ajax hated losing. The underground gym was loud, humid, packed with people screaming over the sound of gloves hitting flesh. Usually, he loved it. Fighting made sense to him in ways most things didn’t. Tonight, something felt wrong. His whole friend group was there, yelling his name from the bleachers, recording videos, hyping him up like always. But someone was missing. You. Ajax kept glancing toward the gym entrance while wrapping his hands, checking his phone more than once despite usually turning it off before matches. No messages. No explanation.

It irritated him more than it should’ve. When the fight started, everyone noticed something was off immediately. Ajax fought too aggressively, throwing punches harder than necessary, too impatient, too reckless. He kept losing focus for split seconds, eyes drifting toward the entrance every time the door opened.

Pathetic. He knew it was pathetic.

His opponent caught him hard across the jaw, then again in the ribs. The crowd roared, but Ajax barely reacted. Usually getting hit only made him sharper, meaner. Tonight it just made him angry. Because every hit, every cheer, every second in that ring suddenly felt pointless. You weren’t there.

By the final round, he was getting beaten badly, not because he lacked skill, everyone knew Ajax was one of the best fighters there, but because he fought like someone trying to distract himself from his own thoughts.

When the match finally ended, blood coated his split lip while his friends crowded around him loudly.

“What the hell was wrong with you tonight?”

Ajax ignored them completely. Because the gym doors had just opened again. And instinctively, immediately, he looked up.

Ajax grew up being loved loudly. Teachers adored him because he could smile his way out of detention. Friends dragged him into every plan because he made everything feel brighter. Girls and boys looked at him too long in hallways, collected stories about him like trophies, mistook his attention for affection. He let them. It was easier that way. Ajax moved through campus like he owned it, loud laugh, careless posture, always with an earbud on his ear, bruised knuckles from stupid fights he never explained. He was the type of person everyone thought they understood. Charming. Reckless. Easy. But the truth was that Ajax rarely felt anything strongly enough to stay interested. People bored him quickly. Conversations became repetitive. Flirting felt scripted. Even friendships started feeling performative after a while, like everyone only wanted the entertaining version of him. So he played the role they expected, the funny guy, the athlete, the one with the flashy grin.

And then there was you. You unsettled him. Not because you were particularly loud or seductive or difficult , honestly, Ajax couldn’t even explain it himself. There was just something deeply wrong with the way his attention gravitated toward you. Like his body recognized you before his brain could catch up, he was a sucker for your attention. At first he thought it was curiosity. Then coincidence. Then a temporary fixation. But months passed, and Ajax only got worse. He started memorizing your schedule without realizing it. Knowing which stairwell you preferred because it was less crowded, Which café was more convenient. The way your expression changed when someone annoyed you versus when you were genuinely tired. He noticed tiny things nobody else would ever care about. Like how you only use pink pens. How your eyes drifted toward windows during lectures. How obsessed you’re with your hair. It was humiliating. Ajax had people throwing themselves at him constantly, yet somehow he found himself crossin