“Oh? You’re here?”
When the sliding door opened, Gi Siyoung’s personal trainer greeted him warmly. The trainer had tremendous muscles at first glance. The veins on his forearms bulged out in bumps and ridges, and his broad shoulders were massive enough to easily hold several heavy water bottles.
Coming to the center filled with bright light and packed with exercise equipment, the chill that had been sweeping over his body seemed to dissipate a little.
“Please warm up for a moment. I’ll bring the program I put together for today.”
“Yes, take your time.”
Gi Siyoung went to the private changing room and changed his clothes. He rubbed the lip balm he kept in his locker on his lower lip and rubbed his upper and lower lips together. Wearing tight exercise sleeveless wear and shorts that came to his knees, he began taping to prevent injury during exercise. His skill was quite proficient, so at a glance he looked like an athlete building his body for the season rather than an actor.
“Can you help me warm up?”
“How should I help you?”
At Gi Siyoung’s suggestion, Seungun stood blankly before approaching the mattress for bodyweight exercises. The entire center wall was all mirrors. Gi Siyoung lay down and bent his knees. It was the sit-up position.
“Just sit comfortably with your butt on top of my feet.”
“Like this?”
“Are you sitting?”
“Yes.”
Gi Siyoung sent his clasped palms to the back of his head. Then he lightly began doing sit-ups. His movements were light and fast. The tight exercise tank top created wrinkles along the muscle lines clinging to his upper body. He instantly passed 10 and entered 20. Each time Gi Siyoung, whose back was on the floor, rose up again with a whoosh, Seungun counted the numbers quietly.
“…25, 26….”
Even though the numbers kept rising without rest, Gi Siyoung didn’t let out a single labored breath. Seungun, who was counting the numbers while watching his upper body go up and down, was rather the one becoming breathless.
Moreover, each time Gi Siyoung raised his upper body, whether he was doing it on purpose or the mattress was sliding, he reduced the gap between their faces. When Seungun avoided him, he leaned his upper body to that side and rose up, and when he turned to the other side, he leaned to that side and followed.
His mischief didn’t seem to be over yet. Finally, after Gi Siyoung raised his upper body, he made a smacking sound and fell away. Startled, Seungun’s eyes widened. His butt lifted slightly from Gi Siyoung’s feet. He touched his lips that had collided and looked around.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
How do you see him as two years older than me? Gi Siyoung giggled and lay his upper body back down again.
“Why have you been like this since earlier?”
“What about me.”
“What if someone sees? Aren’t you afraid of people’s gazes?”
Seungun snapped at him fiercely despite not being able to raise his voice loudly.
“As if. Who exactly is watching?”
“……”
“Who? Who?”
Even though he wasn’t holding his legs, he raised his upper body without wavering and looked around exaggeratedly. In a place blocked by mirrors on all sides, there was no one but them. However, Seungun was still anxious. If any tail is long, it gets stepped on. He rolled his lips inward and bit them so Gi Siyoung couldn’t stick his snout in.
“The trainer is coming.”
“He’s not here yet.”
“There are cameras here too.”
“This is a blind spot so it can’t be seen. Do you think I would have brought Seungun-ssi here without calculating that kind of thing?”
Bobbing bobbing. When Gi Siyoung moved his two feet up and down, Seungun’s body, which had been sitting pressing down on his feet, also bobbed up and down. His face reddened, and Seungun came down from the mattress with a butt-walk. Gi Siyoung’s sole brushed against his center and kneaded subtly. Seungun sprang up from the mattress like a spring bouncing.
“Know the time and place!”
“Oh? You’re here?”
Gi Siyoung smiled brightly and waved his hand toward beyond his back. Seungun turned around, startled out of his wits. However, there was no one behind him. When he turned his head irritably, Gi Siyoung was grinning.
“There’s no one.”
“……”
“Scaredy-cat.”
Seungun wanted to punch him.
“Oh? You’re here now?”
“Fool me once, fool me twice? I won’t fall for Siyoung-ssi’s words anymore.”
“Fall for what?”
This time it was really the trainer’s voice. Seungun hurriedly stepped aside.
“You waited long, right?”
“You could have come even slower. Our manager was so weak and feeble, I was making him exercise.”
Seungun turned sharply and walked trudge trudge to the water purifier in the center. The program was different every day. That was precisely why a personal trainer was attached.
Gi Siyoung’s exercise was so intense that even the person watching could become dehydrated. Each time he took a brief rest, Seungun brought cold water in a tumbler, but as soon as he went next to him, hot heat and the smell of sweat wafted strongly. It was an exercise intensity he couldn’t follow even if paid.
“Wow, you’re in good condition today? Should we go one more set?”
The trainer clapped his hands loudly and praised him so much his mouth went dry. When you exercise with guys who come to work out looking like they’re about to die any moment and make dying sounds during exercise, even from a teaching standpoint you can only sigh, but with Gi Siyoung there was none of that at all.
Look at him now. Even the non-motorized treadmill, he ran at a pace an athlete would run, without his pace faltering even once.
The sleeveless shirt he had thrown off in the middle was crumpled carelessly on the floor. Seungun folded the sweat-soaked sleeveless shirt and stared blankly at Gi Siyoung sprinting in perfect form on the non-motorized treadmill. Like a racehorse injected with epinephrine, there wasn’t a single sign of fatigue.
The sweat flowing down the tightly pulled muscle grooves glistened in the sunlight. Even though he had slept and woken up with him yesterday, seeing him full of energy alone somehow felt unfair.
“Manager-nim, do you have any exercise you do?”
The trainer, who had been cleaning the treadmill with disinfectant spray, suddenly threw out a question. Seungun, who had been organizing the belongings Gi Siyoung left behind while he went to shower, shook his head. The only exercise he did was just walking or breathing exercises.
Even the walking wasn’t taking time to walk but was all walking while working. It felt awkward to even bring it up in front of a trainer who made exercise his profession. At Seungun’s lukewarm attitude, the trainer’s eyes lit up, saying he had a good idea.
“Don’t be like that and come out to exercise together when Siyoung-ssi comes out to exercise.”
“Me too?”
“Yes. We also do D.C for Chinmil Enter employees.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t really have an interest in exercise…”
“I’m not saying this because I’m a professional, but Manager-nim also has pretty bone structure. If you exercise just a little, you’ll build fine muscles and it’ll show right away on your body.”
The trainer who approached him kneaded his body without permission. Of course he knew it was to gauge his muscles, but it was strangely uncomfortable. Seungun slipped away while subtly twisting his shoulder. However, if he stopped there, he wouldn’t be the person who grew the exercise center this much. He grabbed Seungun’s forearm and led him to the mattress area.
“Will you lie down for a moment?”
“No, I’m fine!”
“Come on, don’t pull away. Lie down.”
Suddenly, Seungun lay flat on his back on the mattress.
“Try lifting one leg while lying down.”
“Like this?”
“Yes, good. This is called the Active Straight Leg Raise, and it tests how flexible your hamstrings are and how stable your pelvis is. Modern people sit in chairs and work more than people in the past, so they live in bad postures like crossing their legs and tilting their waists. If your pelvis collapses later, everything collapses. You have to catch it when you can catch it at first.”
Seungun lifted his left leg as the trainer instructed, then next lifted the opposite leg. Even after that, the test didn’t seem to be over as the trainer grabbed the back of Seungun’s thigh and slowly relaxed it.
“Ugh!”
“See how it pulls. Normally it shouldn’t be stiffened this much. Ah, this is serious. If you don’t loosen it now, your body will harden like this. Then later when you get older, you’ll get chronic ailments, your posture will collapse, and every joint will hurt. If you manage it now, you won’t suffer when you’re old.”
The trainer made a serious expression. There was even a tragic beauty as if all the muscles in his body would stiffen and die if he didn’t start exercising right away. When the expert came out like that, he even began to suspect whether his body had really entered an emergency state.
