When You Work, Do It Right
By the time Seong-min arrived at the Gym, it was nearly seven in the evening.
It was June, with summer approaching, and the days had grown long enough that full darkness had yet to settle. With each passing day, the sun would linger even longer.
"Seong-min! Good to see you."
The trainer looked up from the counter and greeted him as he walked in.
"You suddenly disappeared starting yesterday, so I was wondering what happened."
"Work. So I don't think I'll be able to come in the mornings anymore."
"Ah, I see. Yeah, if it's work, that makes sense."
The trainer nodded in understanding and handed over a set of workout clothes and a locker key.
"Have a good session."
Seong-min took the clothes and key and headed inside, glancing around as he went.
Whoa… people really pile in at this hour.
Morning workouts had been comfortably quiet, but now members were packed throughout the floor, sweating through their routines. Even the treadmills that had sat empty in the mornings were lined with people of every age, running or walking in a steady row.
People really do care about their health.
He hadn't noticed it in the mornings, but looking at the crowd now, he could feel how seriously people took their fitness. They came at this hour for the same reasons he did — personal schedules, limited free time.
I need to work just as hard as any of them.
Today's goal was a level-up right here at the Gym. That meant he had to train without slack.
He stepped into the men's locker room, unlocked the locker matching his number, stowed his bag, and stripped out of his street clothes. After changing into the Gym's workout gear, he headed back out onto the floor.
He moved to the full-length mirrors, loosened up with a light stretch, then found an open treadmill and stepped on. He set the speed to 8 and began walking in earnest.
The first ten minutes were meant as a warm-up, but for Seong-min — whose Stamina sat at 30 — a speed of 8 was the light warm-up pace that 6 would have been for anyone else.
Yeah, my condition's definitely down after the delivery work.
When he'd come at ten in the morning, walking at 8 had felt almost effortless. Now his body felt stiff and heavy. After a brutal shift of loading and unloading, that was only natural. Even so, he refused to drop the pace and kept walking hard at 8.
When the ten minutes were up, he stepped off, rinsed his throat with cold water from the cooler, and went straight into his workout.
Today was upper body.
Because it was the evening rush, other members had most of the machines occupied, so he couldn't pick and choose freely. He hunted down whatever was free and threw himself into each set with full focus, rotating through everything rather than locking onto a single exercise.
Traps, biceps, pecs, delts, triceps, lats — he hit every upper-body muscle group without exception. After roughly thirty minutes of nonstop weight training, he returned to the treadmill and ran at a jogging pace of 10.
One level-up. That's the goal today.
So he had to keep the treadmill moving.
Kid really goes at it.
From across the floor, the trainer watched Seong-min and gave a small nod. From what he'd observed so far, the guy trained with genuine effort. Whenever the trainer corrected a form issue mid-set, Seong-min adjusted immediately — the will to learn was solid.
The problem is the overtraining.
He stayed on the treadmill far too long. But whenever the trainer tried to rein him in, Seong-min would talk about fighting himself, about pushing through, and there was no talking him down. Judging by how well he kept it up, though, his stamina was clearly excellent.
Seong-min only left the Gym that day after hitting the single level-up he'd planned for.
"Thank you!"
"Yeah. Good work today."
Min-hyeok took the envelope and came over to Seong-min.
"Hyung! We made another day's pay!"
"Yeah."
"This is already day five, right?"
"That's right."
"Whoa — so we've made eight hundred fifty thousand won total so far?"
"That about covers it."
At a hundred seventy thousand won a day, five days from Monday through Friday added up to eight hundred fifty thousand.
"The work's brutal, but it's actually pretty worth it, huh?"
"That's what I told you. Your body's wrecked, but the job has its own kind of appeal."
On top of that, the daily wage was paid out the same day in cash — not a bad arrangement for anyone who needed money right away.
"Hyung, you heading straight home again today?"
"Today?"
"Yeah~ It's Friday night. Don't just go home — let's grab a quick drink. Dinner too while we're at it."
"Hmm…"
Seong-min hesitated. He'd been planning to hit the Gym and then head home.
"Hyung~ Come on, just one drink! I showed up every single day for five days and worked my ass off~!"
"What does that have to do with this?"
"It has everything to do with it~! You and I are on the same crew, hyung. Haha…"
What a ridiculous kid.
"You got plans?"
"No plans, but…"
"Then let's go~!"
Faced with Min-hyeok's relentless pestering for a drink, Seong-min mulled it over a moment longer, then gave in with a resigned nod.
"Fine. One drink. It is Friday night."
"That's what I'm talking about~!"
With Min-hyeok crowing in triumph, they clocked out together instead of heading straight home.
"Ahh~ That hits the spot!"
They took the bus into the nightlife district and ducked into a beer hall, ordering Cajun chicken salad, fish cake soup, and two five-hundred-cc glasses of cold draft beer.
"Nothing beats a beer after work, I'm telling you~!"
"Can't argue with that."
Seong-min liked it too — a glass of soju or a beer after a hard day's labor.
"Hyung, you know what?"
"What?"
Seong-min picked up a piece of Cajun chicken salad with his chopsticks and ate it.
"Honestly, after Monday, the work was way harder than I expected. I was seriously torn about whether to keep going."
"Torn?"
"Yeah. Man… hauling those kimchi boxes around was no joke."
Min-hyeok picked up a fish cake skewer, dipped it in soy sauce, and took a bite.
He chewed through the whole skewer before speaking again.
"So on the way home that night, I kept thinking maybe I just wouldn't show up the next day. But you know why I came back on Tuesday?"
Seong-min spooned up some of the fish cake broth, then poured a shot from the soju bottle they'd ordered alongside the draft beer and knocked it back in one go. He spooned up another mouthful of broth.
"Why?"
"You, hyung."
"Me?"
"Yeah. I figured if I didn't show on Tuesday, you'd be disappointed."
"……"
"So I thought, okay, even if it's hard, I've got to go. I can't let Seong-min hyung down. I came back looking at you and only you."
"……"
"Pretty amazing, right?"
"…Are you serious?"
Min-hyeok grinned.
"I'm kidding. You didn't actually buy that, did you?"
Seong-min had. From everything he'd seen of this kid, it was entirely plausible.
"Okay, it's not like there was zero truth to it. I did factor in that you'd probably be disappointed."
Min-hyeok lifted his soju glass and drained it in one shot.
"Ugh~ Bitter."
He immediately chased it with a spoonful of fish cake broth.
Seong-min picked up the soju bottle and refilled Min-hyeok's empty glass, then started to pour his own — only for a hand to stop him.
"Hyung, don't you know pouring your own drink is bad form?"
Seong-min looked at him and gave a wry smile. Fair point.
Min-hyeok took the bottle and filled Seong-min's empty glass.
"Working hard for five days and having eight hundred fifty thousand won in cash land in my hands — that felt seriously rewarding."
"Right? That's why people want the envelope of cash over a bank transfer. You get that feeling of, yeah, I actually put in a real day's work."
"You coming next week too?"
"Of course I am."
Aside from Gombang Work, Seong-min didn't have anything that matched this job. He could clock in every day, collect a steady hundred seventy thousand won in daily wages, and — most importantly — stack experience and level up while he worked. From where he stood, the delivery loading job couldn't have looked better.
"Eight hundred fifty thousand a week means over three million a month if you do four weeks. That's this job."
"Whoa… when you run the numbers, yeah, it is."
As long as you could show up consistently, it was work that could pull in more than three million won a month. If you could just hang on and perform, the money was solid.
Seong-min had already deposited the three hundred thousand won he owed this month a few days earlier. Out of the eight hundred fifty thousand total, he'd given Auntie Hye-suk the first day's envelope of a hundred seventy thousand as thanks, leaving seven hundred eighty thousand — of which three hundred thousand went to the debt. That left a real net of four hundred eighty thousand for the week.
But starting next week, every day's wage would be entirely his. Another five days meant another eight hundred fifty thousand. Add what he had now, and by the end of next week he'd be looking at one million three hundred thirty thousand in earnings — assuming he kept showing up for the loading work all five days.
"When you're doing it, it's fucking brutal. But there's this sense of accomplishment that keeps pulling you back."
"That's the charm of a daily wage handed over in an envelope."
"It really does feel different from a monthly paycheck. If I had to compare it, maybe a little like getting tips when I was waiting tables?"
Tips came in cash too, so the comparison held.
They kept talking over draft beer and soju, and before they knew it the clock had pushed past eight. Five bottles of soju gone, two five-hundred-cc drafts each. The buzz was starting to settle in. They hadn't mixed the drinks on purpose, but soju and beer were already blending into somaek in their stomachs — that much was inevitable.
"Hyung, you got family?"
"Why do you ask?"
"No reason… just asking."
Min-hyeok lifted his soju glass and drained it.
"Family as a kind of fence… it makes you think about a lot of things, you know? Just talking. Don't read into it~"
"Should we get going?"
The side dishes were gone, the drafts were empty, and the soju bottles were nearly dry.
"Yeah~ Let's call it here for tonight."
They stood, stopped by the restroom, then headed to the counter.
"I've got this."
Seong-min pulled out his card and paid for everything.
"I was the one who suggested drinks. Letting you cover the whole thing feels wrong."
He started to dig cash out of the day's wage envelope.
"Put it away. It's fine."
"Still feels bad, though."
"Then you get the next one."
"Got it~ Next time, hyung, I'm treating for sure!"
Seong-min flagged down a passing taxi and opened the back door.
"Get in."
"Oh~ Manner guy! See, hyung, from a face-reading standpoint you're a really good person! I've done my research~!"
"Yeah, yeah. Stop with the weird talk and get in the car."
Five bottles of soju and two five-hundred-cc beers each had left Min-hyeok looking pleasantly buzzed.
"Hyung~ See you Monday~! I'm heading out!"
"Yeah. Get home safe."
Seong-min shut the taxi door and only turned away once he'd watched Min-hyeok pull off. He shook his head.
What a strange kid.
He called a cab on his phone and waited. He was buzzed himself, so a taxi home made sense.
Couldn't make it to the Gym today, but I still leveled up.
From Tuesday through Thursday, running the Gym alongside the job, he'd racked up a solid amount of progress. Today was Friday — no Gym — but he'd worked himself raw all the same.
And Seong-min had figured something out.
That the Martial Power stat raised his strength.
And that Martial Power had another effect entirely.
It was changing the shape of his body.