Shut Those Mouths
“All right, stretch it up just like that! Brace your abs—use your core!”
“Hup…!”
“Keep the breathing natural. No—don’t go slack, either. Now match the height of your upper body to the tips of your toes!”
Who was I, and where was I? The question rose unbidden, the strain was that bad.
I was in the middle of Pilates hell.
When Vanessa demonstrated the moves they all looked effortless and elegant. The second I tried to follow, they turned into something ugly and vaguely convulsive.
I was trembling like a leaf in a gale, yet Vanessa showed no mercy.
“Come on, pull harder! Harder, harder, harder!”
I am pulling as hard as I can…!
“Okay—release.”
The instant she told me to let go I exhaled hard and collapsed, body going limp. I half expected to sink straight through the floor.
Had I always been this stiff…?
The rest period never lasted long. As if she knew that left alone I would simply fall asleep, Vanessa moved straight into the next exercise.
“More, more, more! Imagine you’re lengthening the spine right out of your body!”
What kind of feeling is that even supposed to be?
Wondering if I was the only one suffering, I glanced sideways. Cassandra looked every bit as wrecked as I felt.
At this rate both of us were going to die on the mat before we ever graduated to those torture-device-looking machines.
“From that position, extend just one arm. Feel like you’re drawing the arm out of the shoulder socket…”
…Why does everything have to be about ripping body parts out?
“Keep the shoulders from riding up—drop the shoulder blades. Think of lowering them. Now stretch… stretch…!”
Watching Vanessa coach us so diligently, sweat beading on her own brow, I couldn’t bring myself to complain out loud. Gratitude and sheer humiliation warred inside me.
How badly did I have to suck for her to correct every single millimeter like this?
I could force my brain not to let the thoughts escape my mouth, but there was nothing I could do about a body that had already hit its limit.
Thud!
The moment the final rep ended I toppled face-first onto the mat. Vanessa clapped her hands once, sharp and bright.
“All right, you two did wonderfully! Shall we take a little break?”
“Thank you.”
I stayed sprawled for a solid five seconds, then pushed myself up, head bowed, and simply breathed.
I must have looked pathetic, because Reni’s worried little voice floated over.
“Daddy, hang in there!”
I nearly teared up.
Forcing a smile for him, I raised a trembling fist and clenched it tight.
“Daddy’s fine. Don’t worry.”
“Mm…”
My eldest still looked unconvinced. Beside him, my second son was doing… something. I turned to look.
“Whoa—Luca.”
Forgetting the ache, I scrambled up and hurried to the stroller.
Instead of napping or losing himself in a toy the way he usually did, Luca had hauled himself upright by the tray, clearly trying to escape.
“You feeling cooped up, buddy?”
The second I lifted him out he didn’t even glance at me—he just rocketed off on all fours in one determined direction.
“….”
Every eye followed the tiny explorer. Luca stopped in front of a big red exercise ball, wrapped his arms around the thing that was bigger than he was, and turned to me with sparkling eyes.
Right. My second son didn’t waste energy worrying about Dad.
“Daddy, I wanna play with the big ball too!”
Reni called out in an urgent little voice, wanting out of the stroller as well.
Maybe, just maybe, my firstborn wasn’t all that worried about me either.
After clearing it with Vanessa I set up a little play zone off to the side of the set, using chairs in place of a proper fence, then returned to my spot.
Normally Cassandra would have jumped in to help, but she was still massaging her quivering legs as she spoke, voice soft.
“Still… it feels kind of refreshing. Even if I’m clumsy, there’s something fun about just moving along.”
“Is that so? Glad to hear it…”
I felt nothing of the sort. What was wrong with me?
I must have looked truly pitiful, because the staff member who came over to fix my makeup before we resumed filming first patted my hair and offered advice of her own.
“Jun, when you’re doing standing stretches, engage the deep muscles right here and here—that’s how you find your center. Keep some tension in the limbs but also let go of force. It’ll feel a lot easier!”
…Is that the soft-yet-strong paradox again?
I was grateful, but the tip helped exactly zero. Still, I couldn’t say that, so I simply nodded and managed a small smile.
The more I thought about it, though, the more stubborn I got.
I had never once in my life believed I was stupid or slow—not at studying, not at sports.
“….”
Back to basics. Hadn’t I looked up the fundamentals of Pilates before coming here today?
Pilates was a method for building balance, flexibility, and strength while correcting posture.
Every movement began with breath and center… right. So the precise flow and… um… therefore…
“….”
Yeah. No idea.
Every video I had diligently watched the night before had turned into tissue paper in my head. Was this what it felt like when the body got so exhausted the brain stiffened right along with it?
I should have just asked Cassandra to take boxing lessons with me. I’d heard boxing was great for weight loss.
I was sitting there half-defeated and blank when a re-energized Vanessa herded us toward a machine that looked frankly menacing.
“Now we’re going to articulate the spine.”
…We’re going to do what with the spine?
The endless-seeming agony finally ended.
In truth the whole thing had been a beginner session that hadn’t even taken a full hour, yet I had never imagined it would be this hard.
Instead of feeling refreshed I felt vaguely stiff and out of sorts, which somehow made it even more unfair.
While I was still trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, my eyes landed on the other Pilates machines we hadn’t even touched today.
…If I buy those through the Manito App, wouldn’t my understanding of Pilates jump a little?
Once I actually knew how the body was supposed to move, sore muscles would be nothing.
The real torture had been that constant, irritating uncertainty—am I doing this right or not?
My stiff body wasn’t going to turn flexible overnight, but I could at least shorten the awkward adjustment period and train more efficiently.
Tempted by the easy path, I casually asked Vanessa about the price of the equipment.
“Hmm, a reformer will still run you a few thousand dollars. Let’s see, a Cadillac…”
Hearing the numbers she reeled off, I immediately abandoned the shortcut.
Right. What was the point of cutting corners?
And anyway, all of this was for Cassandra, not me. Me getting good on my own wouldn’t mean much.
“Oh, but a ladder barrel is popular for home use—even the expensive ones are under five hundred. Great for flexibility if you use it in bits and pieces.”
“I see. Then I could just buy one of those for the office.”
“Buying equipment after a single day of Pilates is a little much, don’t you think? I mean, I’d recommend it, of course… but maybe wait until you’ve done it a few more times and decide you want to stick with it.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. I’ll think about it.”
I said the words, but on the way home I went ahead and ordered a ladder barrel through the Manito App anyway.
Regular stretching improved circulation, reduced swelling, corrected posture…
It wasn’t even about raising my own performance stats. Employee welfare. That was my story and I was sticking to it.
Lunch the next day.
“Wow.”
Facing a generous salad and boiled chicken breast artfully arranged in a pretty glass bowl, Greg raised one eyebrow.
He wasn’t a picky eater to begin with, and he certainly wasn’t the type to complain in front of someone who had declared they were dieting, so he simply picked up his fork in silence.
When the exact same salad appeared again during that evening’s overtime and at lunch the following day, he tried to make a break for James’s café—only to get caught.
The second Cassandra stepped into the restroom, Greg headed for the first floor. I snagged the hood of his hoodie and yanked him back.
“Where do you think you’re going? We’re in this boat together. You’re getting healthy too.”
He twisted, trying to slip free.
“I’m already overflowing with health. Zero belly fat.”
I knew exactly how good Greg’s body was. I still had zero intention of letting him go.
“I refuse to sit here suffering while you sneak off to eat something delicious. This is insanely stressful.”
“Ah, so the truth comes out at last!”
We were still bickering by the door when the doorbell rang. The delivery tech for the ladder barrel had arrived.
He pulled the pieces from the box, assembled everything with quick, efficient hands, and left.
Finally…!
With a little flutter of excitement I opened the instruction booklet that had come with the ladder barrel and began working through the exercises one by one.
“…Whoa. You’re actually decent at this.”
Greg had wandered out to watch, one arm around Luca and the other around Reni. He watched me settle sideways on the barrel and move slowly through the sequence.
“I’m no expert, but you look a lot more natural than yesterday.”
Cassandra’s eyes went round as she praised me too.
There was still that strange, half-understood sensation, but I could tell I was moving correctly now.
Parts of me still trembled with every shift, yet the simple pleasure of controlling my own body had finally become real.
I stepped down carefully, feeling lighter than before, and offered my verdict.
“It’s… how do I put it? Like floating like a butterfly while still wanting to sting like a bee.”
“What on earth does that even mean?”
Cassandra’s diet turned out to be less dramatic than I’d expected.
Twice a week we went to Vanessa for lessons; in between we stuck to the meal plan and light stretching.
Just because it wasn’t dramatic didn’t mean it was easy, of course.
No matter how creatively you dress it up, three salads a day will eventually pile up stress. Add the withdrawal symptoms that came from having eaten delicious food every single day before this, and it was a perfect storm.
I didn’t strictly have to suffer along with her. But I had promised to do it together, we were filming the whole thing, and for the sake of my own health I decided a little self-reflection was in order. So I stuck with it day after day.
Even after a full week, though, the scale barely budged despite the lighter feeling in my body.
Just as the lack of visible results was starting to sap my motivation, Vanessa uploaded a teaser short of our first video.
Like every piece of content she made, the short clip overflowed with bright, infectious energy.
And…
“Ahem.”
I cleared my throat, suddenly self-conscious. This was the first time my face had been under such direct, unrelenting focus.
In the performance footage from Lemon Soup Pub, Greg had always soaked up more of the spotlight than I had.
Even in the family vlogs with the kids I usually blurred my own face so the camera could stay on them.
The membership-only live streams were mostly just my hands working on whatever craft was in progress; my face rarely appeared.
So of course the very first time viewers got a clear look at me had to be the one where I was shaking like a leaf and straining with every fiber of my being.
“Pfft…”
“Heh…”
Greg and Cassandra barely managed to smother their laughter. My face burned hotter.
“Hey, you still photograph ridiculously well. The bright lighting loves you. You look way younger, too.”
“And the comments are great. They’re saying you’re handsome but with this perfect clumsy charm…”