Thursdays are for boxing. Thursdays are for Nie Mingjue. He pretends, sometimes, that they’re peers, even though they’re in different weight classes and always will be. He likes spitting and snarling at Nie Mingjue just to see what he’ll do, to push and shove at the boundaries. Nie Mingjue, it feels like sometimes, has self control the way that ponds have ice in the late fall- delicately and temporarily and easily disturbed.