“What the — where did all the cops go?”
Kim Yunho said it the moment he stepped into the gym, craning his neck to look around for someone.
Kim Yunho was on good terms with the muzzled ones, but had surprisingly said they weren’t his type. Naturally, he didn’t even consider Sailors who were cut from the same cloth as himself as potential sex partners.
That left only the cops — and while he’d shown interest in Son Geonwoo at first, he was currently setting his sights on whoever wore number 11. Son Geonwoo was the only one who seemed to actually get along with Kim Yunho, so Jiwon had remembered his face and number too.
But uncharacteristically, Kim Yunho hadn’t even tried to strike up a conversation with the guy, so Jiwon had wondered why — until he heard Kim Yunho say something surprisingly sensible: it wasn’t too late to get close after finding out what the guy was in for.
“You’re right. Can’t see Son Geonwoo anywhere.”
Park Geonwu glanced around and added, “Number 3 either.”
Jiwon thought, good. Even without what Park Geonwu had said earlier, seeing Number 3 felt awkward for no reason he could quite name.
“Why is it only the cops who are missing.”
“Those guys have good bodies.”
“And ours aren’t?”
“Maybe they slept in.”
“No way.”
“Has anyone seen them come out of their rooms?”
That one comment set off a wave of complaints from all sides. Crew members who were already showing up late because the 6 a.m. wake-up was getting harder to bear were especially on edge.
At 6:15, the gym doors closed. The team leaders came in shortly after, but there were only two of them.
“Captain, I have a question. Is Team 1 not coming?”
Park Geonwu, who wasn’t intimidated by the team leaders, spoke up.
“Team 1 has been given an individual schedule, so their workout time has been changed.”
The Captain answered without much fuss.
“They didn’t just sleep in?”
This time it was Gwak Chan, who had appeared beside Park Geonwu at some point.
“Team 1 was up at five in the morning. Do you want to get up at that hour?”
Gwak Chan’s team leader barked in a sharp voice instead of the Captain.
At that, the muzzled ones who had been complaining the loudest went instantly quiet.
“No, sir! My apologies!”
Even the easygoing Gwak Chan snapped to attention and answered crisply. Somehow, the muzzled ones had sharper discipline than the ones dressed as cops.
“Alright, let’s get to it.”
The Captain encouraged the remaining Crew in his characteristic upbeat tone.
“Today we’ll also be checking the results from the past three days of training.”
As if he’d overheard their earlier conversation, before the real workout began, they measured weight and body measurements again. The good news was that unlike the first day, it wasn’t done by calling everyone up one at a time in front of the whole group — instead, they worked out and came to the team leader when their name was called.
Jiwon was called up first, just like on day one. He stepped onto the scale in nothing but a T-back.
Park Geonwu’s eye had been right. He’d gained 3 kg already, and his hip circumference had increased by 0.7 inches.
For all the talk of physical training, what they actually cared about was purely the look of the body. So figures like body fat percentage and muscle mass weren’t something they even bothered with.
“Very good. Keep this up and you’ll have no trouble hitting the target.”
His chest measurements, on the other hand, showed only minimal change. Especially in the middle and lower pectorals he’d been working hardest — virtually no progress.
The Captain and trainer’s expressions soured as they discussed Jiwon’s chest measurements.
“With his elbow, we’ve been sticking mostly to bench press and dumbbells, but going heavier isn’t easy. Low weight, high reps has its limits when you need to push numbers up in a short time.”
“Hmm. Then we’ll increase his painkiller frequency and bump up the weight. Get the size up by whatever means necessary. That’s too flat, isn’t it?”
The Captain made the decision on his own.
“Sailor 1. We’ll be increasing your painkiller dose from once a day to twice a day. I’ll let the clinic know — pick up the extra dose after your workout.”
“I — I think once a day is fine for me.”
He meant it. It worked better than any opioid painkiller he’d ever taken. Which was exactly why it made him uneasy, and the last thing he wanted was a higher dose.
“You don’t have a choice if you want to train properly. It’s not like we’re telling you to stay on it forever — we’ll only push the weight until we get the numbers we want, so there’s no need to worry. If it hurts, we’ll add physical therapy as well. Sailor 2, step forward.”
Jiwon had no say in the matter.
Do as you’re told.
That was the most basic expectation of the Crew, so he had no choice but to comply.
“Alright, drink your booster first.”
The blue-masked trainer assigned to Jiwon handed him his drink.
And so Jiwon moved as a set with Wild Dog 3, Nam Gyuwon, just as he had the past three days.
“Jiwon, your hip size went up, didn’t it?”
“Ah, yeah.”
“I can tell. It’s filled out nicely.”
Nam Gyuwon gave a blank, cheerful smile as he complimented Jiwon.
“I feel like I haven’t been training properly, so I just put on weight for nothing. I do push-ups and stuff in my room, but I’m not getting much out of it.”
He sounded genuinely disappointed.
Nam Gyuwon had been racking up penalty points every time he ejaculated during workouts — nine points already — and at the pool he’d earned an additional ten, same as Jiwon, for ejaculating during physical contact with someone else. Nineteen points total. The highest among the Crew.
“It’s fine. As long as you don’t hit fifty, you’re okay. Just hold out three more days. I did the math — three times five is fifteen. Say you swim up to three more times, and just don’t make contact with anyone: fifteen points. Add it all up and that’s forty-nine.”
Nam Gyuwon responded brightly when Jiwon, on a break, started fretting about his penalty points.
The optimism was appreciated, but the remaining time in the camp wasn’t three days — it was ten. Ejaculating only incurred points this week; who knew what they’d be penalized for next week.
“Right. Even so, try to keep the points low. Would be a shame to throw away everything you’ve managed so far.”
“Yes. Thank you for looking out for me, Jiwon.”
Nam Gyuwon smiled shyly.
Too sensitive for his own good, Nam Gyuwon turned out to be more genuine the more Jiwon talked to him. His personality was generally mild, and he was on the quieter side. Jiwon had assumed he’d be the type crawling with lust, but during workouts he focused only on the workout. He rarely stole glances at others with any kind of leering look.
It was genuinely ironic that someone like him was one of the perverts wearing a muzzle.
Even the comparatively mannered Nam Gyuwon couldn’t hide his curiosity about Jiwon’s chest tattoo.
“It looks like azalea blossoms.”
He said it while going red all the way to the back of his neck.
It was obvious he was trying not to look, but he kept sneaking glances at Jiwon, stealing peeks.
In the end, Nam Gyuwon was once again the first among the Crew to ejaculate. If anything, the time seemed to be getting shorter with each session. His face flushed red, he covered himself with a towel and shuffled out, and after receiving his five-point penalty, he was sent out of the gym.
Because of that, Jiwon once again had one-on-one training today. He focused on the workout as much as he could. He didn’t check on Park Geonwu and Kim Yunho — who had become a close older brother and friend — to see how they were doing. Having his near-naked body on display in nothing but a T-back was embarrassing enough, and he had no desire to watch them sweating away in the same state.
And there was something particularly uncomfortable about coming to the gym — it felt like witnessing others’ raw, unfiltered desire up close. The heat and arousal bleeding through the clang of iron, the groaning and panting — it felt like a scene out of a porn film.
Today was especially bad. The Sailors’ chests were stirring everyone up. On a day like this, he was grateful the foul-mouthed cops who sexually harassed people without a second thought were nowhere in sight.
Jiwon found himself more preoccupied with how Son Geonwoo would react than Number 3.
He thought of Son Geonwoo, who had brazenly asked him to suck his cock first, then shook his head.
“Sailor 2. Ejaculation. Five penalty points!”
His head turned at the familiar name.
Kim Yunho, who had held out so well up until now, had finally given in.
The sight of him shuffling out, wrapping a towel around his midsection, was a sorry one.
“Ugh, bastard. Couldn’t even hold it together.”
Park Geonwu, who had finished his shower and was waiting for Jiwon, shook his head.
“Should I be happy that’s one less competitor?”
He followed it up with a joke.
“But you just worked out like your life depended on it. No wonder your body’s looking better.”
“You were doing the same, weren’t you, hyung?”
“Of course. I barely lost 1 kg. How am I not losing weight when the food here is so pathetic? Maybe I’ve got too much cum stored up.”
He said something ridiculous, then suddenly pointed to his upper arm — the front of it.
“See how pumped that is? I went absolutely hard. All to keep from coming.”
“Give it a rest, hyung.”
A laugh slipped out.
“I’m serious. I nearly died holding it in because I wanted to look at Kkwakchan. One look at him and I would’ve shot right then and there.”
He even made a fist to drive the point home.
The cops who had skipped the morning workout were nowhere to be seen at mealtime either.
