Fitness Couples Don't Need Words
Expecting a lavish protein feast, I hurried home.
"…"
The meal waiting for me the moment I walked through the door: two slabs of chicken breast and a bowl of brown rice.
Just like I'd decided beforehand, all I had to do was look at the chicken breast and picture the taste of Hwanggung Olive Chicken.
That was the plan, anyway.
"Chew… chew…"
Thinking about it, this was the first time I'd tried applying the ability to more than one piece at once. Sure enough, only a single slab had transformed into something delicious. Maybe the system blocked multi-item conversions on purpose — if you could gather a pile of processed food and change it all at once, commercial exploitation would be trivial.
So I made do, alternating between tough raw chicken and actual fried chicken to soothe my disappointment.
Lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, I replayed the whole thing in my head.
If it's only one at a time…
What even counted as "one," though? Take the curry I'd eaten yesterday — rice and curry. Break the curry down into individual ingredients and the count balloons. So as long as something existed as a single dish, it didn't matter how many components were packed inside.
What if I'd mixed the rice and chicken breast properly and thought of it as "chicken breast rice"?
The rice would have been included, sure — but maybe the whole thing would have converted at once. Cook five servings, apply the ability before portioning them out, and you'd effectively make five bowls in a single go.
The next day, I confirmed that the hypothesis I'd cooked up before bed was true.
From early morning I busied myself in the kitchen. Calling it cooking was generous — the result was grotesque — but I was the only one eating it at home, so who cared?
Six slabs of chicken breast, enough for three meals, dumped into a pot of water and boiled into a single monstrosity. At the right moment, I pictured the taste of a famous budae-jjigae restaurant.
"Heave-ho—"
I ladled out two slabs of chicken along with a generous pour of broth over a bowl of rice.
"Oh!"
The chicken had simmered until it was soft enough to shred with a fork. Every bite carried a different flavor — ham, kimchi, sausage, rice cake — the whole budae-jjigae experience. True to form, I demolished the entire bowl of rice in no time.
People always said diet was harder than exercise. Turns out delicious food that doesn't make you fat actually exists.
Cooking a full day's worth of chicken breast every morning became my new routine.
From the first Balance Game: a face so handsome it turned a stunning beauty into my personal free-pass shuttle. From the second: the miracle of eating whatever I wanted while still staying on diet. Maybe what really mattered was the person using the abilities.
I'd been handed incredible powers, and what was I doing with them? Working out like a maniac.
Once I realized I could cook everything at once and portion it out later, I even considered opening a gukbap restaurant — but I wasn't short on money, so there was no rush. Keep playing the Balance Game long enough and I'd probably earn cash and find even easier methods anyway. For now, I'd use the ability for my own convenience and stop overthinking efficiency.
More precisely, far more important things were happening, and I simply didn't have the bandwidth.
"Hehe… I figured I should show it off a little, at least… Is that okay?"
"Yeah, this much is fine…"
Day one as Ajeong's official gym boyfriend. Light skinship — holding hands and the like — had begun. She'd already told the male staff member, but until people saw it with their own eyes they might not believe it, and she wanted to make sure everyone else got the message too.
If anyone else had said that, I might have written it off as princess syndrome. Looking at Ajeong's face, though, the concern was clearly justified.
Day by day, the skinship grew more familiar, and before long linking arms felt completely natural. Spending the same thrilling hours together every day, Saturday arrived before I knew it.
Today wasn't one of her workdays, so I wouldn't see her. Now that our relationship had leveled up from free-pass shuttle to fitness girlfriend, the disappointment hit twice as hard. Saturday was the only day of the week I trained legs — the day I needed her help most — which made her absence sting even worse.
Was this what they called reverse adaptation? Nothing had changed except that Ajeong wasn't there, yet the strength drained straight out of my body.
Bzzzzzt—
I walked into The Gym and checked the front desk. The male staffer glanced my way, then went right back to his phone. Of course he was working weekends too.
I didn't usually care whether staff greeted me or not, but knowing he was deliberately snubbing me left a sour taste. Then again, indifference was probably more comfortable for both of us.
Right. Acting friendly would just make it weirder.
The more I thought about it, the more grateful I felt that he was ignoring me. I changed clothes and headed out onto the floor.
"…"
On my way to warm up on the machines before squats, the back of my head started burning. I turned toward the desk and found the male staffer staring at me with cold eyes. The second our gazes met, he went slack-eyed and pretended to zone out — but he'd definitely been watching me.
He'd been so good at ignoring me earlier. Why the sudden interest? Not that I could march over and confront him about it.
"Haa…"
If he was like this when I came alone, how much was he cursing me out in his head when Ajeong and I worked out together? My life expectancy was probably extending day by day without me even noticing.
"Woohyun!!"
"Huh?"
Thud—
"Ta-da! Hehe…"
Ah. So that was happening right now. Ajeong came flying from somewhere, latched onto my right arm, and beamed up at me like she'd just pulled off a surprise.
"How are you here today?"
"I come on Saturdays too! Last week was the only time I had other plans. You didn't know, so I snuck in on purpose."
"Ah, right."
Thinking about it, Ajeong was one of the few people I genuinely recognized as a gym rat. There was no way she took two rest days a week. Whatever the male staffer was doing, my happiness was climbing in real time.
"Legs today, right?! I've never seen you squat before!"
True to form for a girl more invested in my big three numbers than I was, she clearly wanted to watch me squat.
"Yeah. Warming up on the machines first."
"Okay!"
She was in an especially good mood today, smiling ear to ear. Enchanted by that beautiful smile, I followed her routine straight into hell.
"You're doing all this and then squatting?"
"Huh? Of course!"
Normally I hit one set of calf raises and went straight into squats. We were already on our fourth machine. Wasn't the leg press supposed to count as a working set in the first place? By the time we stepped into the free-weight zone, I couldn't tell whether I was fully warmed up or completely drained.
It was the weekend, but lunch hour kept the place quiet enough that we claimed an empty rack right away. A few empty-bar warm-ups already felt different from usual.
Is this a good thing?
I'd never loosened up this thoroughly before squatting, so I still wasn't sure.
"Ajeong, what's your working weight?"
"Sixty for me. Let's go for a one-rep max together today!"
"Sure, why not."
I always performed better with someone spotting me, so I accepted without hesitation. Ajeong immediately loaded twenty kilos on each side for sixty and started her sets. Her previous best was eighty-five, so we decided to try for ninety.
"You got me?"
She glanced back over her shoulder and asked me to spot her with a needlessly solemn look that was just plain cute.
Whoa…
I'd almost forgotten — Ajeong's real strength was her lower body. Those white leggings looked ready to burst at any second. Feeling both embarrassed and paranoid that someone might be watching, I scanned the area around us.
Clang—
"Haaah… Done!"
She knocked it out far more cleanly than expected. I suggested going heavier, but she shut me down immediately.
"Your turn, Woohyun!"
That day, I squatted one hundred sixty kilos.
"See? Doing it my way works better, right?!"
Smack—
…
"S-sorry."
"Uh… it's fine."
We'd finished our workout and were walking out of The Gym when Ajeong, trailing behind me, slapped me on the ass. She'd connected cleanly — my right cheek was still stinging.
"I got too excited… Are you really okay?"
It had been an accident, and I wasn't even upset, but seeing her so genuinely apologetic made me want to mess with her.
"Still, that was a little much…"
"Huh?"
"You can't just put your hands on some random guy's ass. Are you a pervert?"
"N-no…"
Watching her sunny expression crumple was so adorable I couldn't stop.
"So that's why you made me train legs so hard~ Right?"
"…"
"Here, I'll give you permission — go ahead and touch more."
"It's not like that… I'm sorry…"
Huh?
Whether she hadn't caught that I was joking or was just that sincerely sorry, her big eyes welled up like she was about to cry any second.
"…"
"I was kidding. I wasn't mad at all. Honestly, it felt great — nice and firm! Okay?"
I'd overcorrected in my panic, but thankfully Ajeong's expression was starting to recover.
"Hic… You're really okay?"
"Yeah~ I told you, I actually liked it."
"Really?"
"Really~"
"You liked it?"
"Yes~ So don't cry."
Only after several rounds of confirmation did she seem fully reassured. She wiped the tears from her eyes and immediately started denying everything.
"I wasn't crying…"
"See? No lying, okay?"
Once I was sure she was fine, the mischief kicked right back in. I bobbed my head around, trying to get a look at her face as she stared at the ground.
Squeeze—
…
"You said no lying… You're not lying either, right?"
"Huh?"
"You said you liked it…"
Her hand had clamped down hard on my left ass cheek.
"Hmph… Stop teasing me already!"
The counterattack was so devastating I just stood there, speechless and blank-faced.
Knead—
She gave it one more good squeeze before finally releasing my ass.
"Hehe… You're not gonna report me… right?"
Now she was fretting about that, glancing up at me for a reaction.
"Woohyun?"
I thought about it for a second, then gave her my answer.
Squeeze—
Soft, firm flesh filling my palm. There was no need to answer with words.