‘Once his cycle stabilizes and he finds someone he really likes, it’ll gradually get better.’
He felt somewhat complicated emotions. The reason he’d gotten close to Han Kyungoh in the first place was to protect Wonha from Nam Dohyun. But Dohyun acted like he had absolutely zero personal feelings for Wonha—not even a speck. At this point, it wasn’t just different from the original story; it was as if there was no original story at all. If that was the case, there was no reason to continue this strange relationship with Han Kyungoh either.
However, Wonha had suddenly wanted to keep him next to Han Kyungoh. He didn’t know why.
‘……I decided to wait for him. I’ll ask him later.’
Wonha had also said to just stay at the apartment until the tournament was over. Sangho thought he should get by for the time being, placating Han Kyungoh appropriately.
Calming his turbulent heart like that, Sangho let out a “hmph” through his nose. Anyway, Han Kyungoh had said he’d teach him how to fight, so he was quite motivated. He couldn’t live forever being pushed around in his weak and frail body.
***
When he went down to the community room, Han Kyungoh had hung up a punching bag and was lightly hitting it. He circled around the punching bag with quick, clean movements, then lightly threw a few punches. He said he did boxing, so it must have been true. Sangho looked at Kyungoh curiously and then made his presence known. Then Kyungoh stopped and looked back.
“Am I hitting this?”
“Hyung could break your wrist if you just hit it, so no. This is…… I haven’t done it in a while, so I was just hitting it once to get the feel back.”
Tch. When Sangho shrugged his shoulders, Kyungoh quickly held out a jump rope he’d prepared.
“Jump rope first. Your whole body needs to move while feeling the rhythm.”
Sangho took the jump rope and stared intently. He felt a little excited to start a new exercise. What if I become a boxing champion now and become super successful? Then I’ll go around beating up anyone who picks a fight with me. That landlord bastard and that broadcasting station staff……
“……I’m not teaching you to fight people. This is to land just one hit and create an opening to run away when it’s dangerous, so don’t think weird thoughts.”
When Sangho laughed “hehe” with a slightly sinister expression, he heard Kyungoh’s sigh mixed with reproach. Feeling somewhat pricked, Sangho shot back “That’s not what I was thinking!” and quickly started jumping rope.
After finishing jump rope and light stretching, Sangho’s heart pounded when he finally saw Han Kyungoh coming over with mitts. Still, having exercised together a few times, Kyungoh seemed to know exactly the point where Sangho got tired and had set up an exercise routine.
“Originally you should just do basic exercises to build stamina and strength, but…… since it’s hard to build up suddenly, I’ll just teach you how to throw a straight for now.”
“Straight?”
“It’s not about strength or arm power, but gathering your whole body and throwing one punch like shooting.”
“Ooh……!”
“Here…… between the nose and lips. The philtrum—if you get hit there once, they’ll be dazed for about 0.5 seconds. That’s when you have to run.”
“Ah. Run.”
“Yeah. Don’t run straight ahead. If you hit accurately, immediately run away to the left. Don’t think about hitting twice.”
Then Kyungoh raised his arms right there and got into position. Then he extended his right fist in a straight line, cleanly throwing a punch into the air and returning. It didn’t look particularly special, but it made a whoosh sound with a heavy feeling.
“Left hand on the left side of your chin. Right hand with elbow close to the front of your side. Then rotate from your back foot through your pelvis, shoulder, and fist as you hit. Originally you’d throw a jab with your left hand to measure the punch distance, but if the opponent is close, just throw one straight and run away.”
“Uh. Uhuh.”
When Sangho awkwardly got into position, Han Kyungoh picked up the mitt again. Kyungoh held the mitt in his right hand up near his chin and said,
“Now. Try hitting it once.”
“Uh, now?”
As Kyungoh nodded, Sangho put strength into his eyebrows and extended his fist like Kyungoh had done. However, his fist couldn’t even graze Kyungoh’s mitt and went wide, causing his body to sway.
“Whoa……”
Thud.
Swaying like that, Sangho fell right into Kyungoh’s arms, his face turning bright red with embarrassment. Kyungoh lightly caught Sangho and muttered,
“This is…… good in its own way too.”
He heard a voice mixed with slight laughter. Before Sangho could even furrow his brow, Kyungoh quickly grabbed Sangho’s armpits, stood him up, and said,
“Again.”
At the firm tone as if not wanting to break the exercise flow, Sangho couldn’t even protest and clenched his fist again, raising it above his face. A bit of competitive spirit rose up as his heart pounded. You bastard. I’m definitely going to master this straight and use it on you first.
The entire weekend was spent doing wholesome exercise with Kyungoh. Sangho threw empty punches several times before finally being able to hit Kyungoh’s mitt. Jump rope, strength training, punch practice. Every time Sangho threw a punch, Kyungoh narrowed or widened the mitt distance, telling him to get a feel for the punches.
“To avoid throwing empty swings, you need to clearly learn the sense of distance.”
Once he could throw a basic straight, Kyungoh trained him with various other routine variations. While hit-and-run was the basics, he taught things like stepping subtly to prepare for an attack, or immediately moving his body to an escape route after landing a hit.
With exercise that used his whole body, Sangho learned the straight until his body was soaked with sweat. As his body temperature rose, his body that always tensed up relaxed smoothly and gave a refreshing feeling. Panting lightly and wiping his sweat, Sangho thought that exercise wasn’t always just hard.
“Why did you switch to wrestling?”
“……Just. It’s also fun. And I don’t have to hit people.”
After finishing their workout, the two bought ice cream and sat on chairs in front of the convenience store. Sangho, whose toes were slightly raised on the somewhat high chair, glanced at the large man sitting next to him.
“You don’t like hitting people?”
“In wrestling, the opposing athlete doesn’t get hurt much. It’s over when any body part other than the soles of your feet touches the ground.”
“Hmm.”
“You can use your full strength. But if you lose your balance, you can even lose to someone weaker than me, so I can control myself well too. That’s why I started at first.”
“Yeah.”
“Now…… I just like it. I think it’s the best thing I’ve done in my life.”
At the low voice ringing calmly, Sangho kept his gaze fixed on his toes as he crunched on his ice cream. He genuinely loves wrestling. Until Han Kyungoh appeared, it had been a completely unpopular sport. But he seemed to love it enough not to care about that.
‘What do I like?’
For the first time, Sangho had such thoughts. Just working, coming home and resting, occasionally playing games. As long as he could properly pay next month’s rent, anything seemed fine. Hobbies cost money, so he’d never tried them and had no interest.
“How do you find something you like that much?”
“Well, you try this and that.”
“Really? That’s hard.”
“After the tournament ends. Want to try doing something together?”
When he turned his head to look at Kyungoh, the still unchanging face was staring intently at him. No, wait. The way he put his hands together and tapped his fingers against each other seemed slightly…… nervous.
“Huh?”
“I can only do exercise. But there’s a cultural center around here too. You’ll have a lot of time when you’re on break, hyung.”
“Uhh……”
“We try this and that. ……Together.”
This time, as if embarrassed, Kyungoh’s gaze turned to somewhere far away. Sangho felt somewhat embarrassed along with him. Well, finding hobbies…… is that what it is? If I said I wanted to do flower arranging, would he still do it with me?
“Pfft.”
The image of a large man holding a messy bouquet and struggling popped into his head. Really, really doesn’t suit him.
“I’ll think about it.”
Sangho giggled and leaned his upper body against the chair back. Kyungoh didn’t say much and just fiddled with his own fingers while looking far away.
***
[Hyung, sorry for the late contact. I’ll be back this evening.]
Contact from Wonha came only after Sunday afternoon had passed. Sangho’s eyes sparkled when he checked the message belatedly after training with Kyungoh. I’m finally seeing his face. Sangho’s face reddened slightly as he recalled the slightly downturned eyes and the attractively raised corners of his mouth.
Although it was true he’d been shaken by Nam Dohyun’s various stories, for now Sangho wanted to talk with Wonha. He knew well enough that he and Wonha didn’t match. It also bothered him that Wonha was tolerating his relationship with Kyungoh. Still, Wonha was someone who had silently stayed by his side and waited for him when he was unstable. Even when he himself was acting strange, obsessed with that BL webtoon. So I’ll stay by your side too, like you did.
