The Frontier (4)

Artistic gymnastics is a sport that demands a great many abilities.

Ordinarily, even building a body with sufficient mobility is no easy task. But most of the playable characters in Infinity Black possessed physiques of an ideal caliber. With a body like this, training high-difficulty moves was entirely possible.

"We'll start from a handstand with your hands planted on the ground."

As I began the explanation, I settled into the pose—a clean handstand, legs pressed together and held perfectly straight. From a field of vision flipped a full one hundred eighty degrees, I could see Sulpang. His head was turned slightly aside. He was clearly avoiding looking at me, and my brow creased a little.

What? You're the one who told me to try this. I'm working hard here.

"Don't look away. If you don't watch, the viewers can't see either, right?"

"Well, that's true, but…"

"Sorry. It's nothing."

Sulpang trailed off. If he had something to say, he could just say it. After some dithering, he finally turned his gaze back toward me. Judging by the lack of further comment, it hadn't been anything important.

"This is the foundation. Aim for the pose I'm holding right now. No momentum—come up slowly."

"……"

"Want me to show you again? When you're having trouble with balance, think of it as engaging your core. And…"

In a virtual reality game, even if something goes wrong, it never turns into an injury. A perfectly prepared body and absolute guaranteed safety—it was no exaggeration to call this the ideal environment for trying high-difficulty moves. And artistic gymnastics had a wide range of events, too. It was excellent for moving the body through all kinds of conditions. Acrobatics on a blade's edge drew from the balance beam; ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠training on the vault, the high bar, or the rings naturally taught you to make use of terrain.

Still holding the demonstration pose, I glanced at the chat. More and more viewers were trying it themselves.

See? It's not as easy as you think.

Body movement is something you can't even conceive of until you've experienced it once. Just because you have a good physique doesn't mean you can knock these out the way athletes do. Watching them struggle filled me with a quiet pride. Their reactions were so endearing that the corner of my mouth began to lift. My spirits were lifting a little, too.

Streaming was more fun than I'd expected. The fact that so many people were listening to me and paying attention to me felt almost mysterious. Word must have started spreading somewhere, because the viewer count had already climbed into four digits.

"It's not supposed to be easy, so take it slow. Once you get used to it, try extending your legs like this. It's called a handstand split."

"Hey. Hey!"

"Hm? What now. Don't interrupt."

"……Tsk. Fine. Do whatever you want."

Maintaining that taut balance, I slowly moved both legs—right foot forward, left foot back—until the line of my open legs formed a clean straight line. As a trained athlete, I could even lift one arm in this position. I could walk a balance beam ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like this, too, but unfortunately we were on ordinary ground. I contented myself with carefully stepping my hands forward and moving a little.

Sulpang's expression had gone rather blank. My movements must have looked thoroughly astonishing. Naturally, a smug little smile settled onto my face.

Well? Impressive, right?

That was how I'd felt the first time I watched artistic gymnasts. No matter that this was inside a game—seeing it right in front of you was different. At the athletes' village, you got chances to cross paths with competitors from completely different sports. That was when my interest had first sparked, and I'd dabbled a little in all kinds of disciplines. Fortunately, I'd had talent for them, too.

"Your flexibility is more than enough, so the important thing is not to be scared. After a little practice… hup."

I slowly rotated the legs I'd split front-to-back until they opened side to side. I took a few steps, then rose and hopped lightly upward. A suitable tree branch happened to be right there. The thickness wasn't uniform, so it was a little awkward, but it was sturdy enough to pass. Gripping the branch, I swung through a wide full circle, then flipped my body in midair. After demonstrating a few more moves, I finally came down from the tree.

Tap. The moment I landed cleanly, a donation came in.

A sum that could buy dozens of packs of instant noodles! And the message itself was thoroughly to my liking. My motivation surged. Passion, after all, had always been proportional to money.

Checking the attached photo, I found a pose with one leg lifted into an I-shape. I'd never seen this one before. It was a little different from a standing split. Maybe it was something from ballet? I'd never tried ballet. Ballet was a bit too artistic, you could say—at least, it wasn't to my taste, so I'd never touched it. Still, splitting a leg while standing was something I could manage well enough.

"I think I can do it? While I'm at it, I'll try right now."

"Uh, uh…"

Apparently the pose was complete once you held the raised leg with your arm. Once I caught my ankle, the position gained stability. The sensation of my body stretching out long wasn't bad at all.

But wasn't what I showed earlier way harder than this?

Well, the reaction wasn't bad, so that was fine. Everyone seemed happy, so it was fine.

People's hearts really were impossible to fully understand.

No. Taking a little time with it, this was well past "not bad." The backlog was starting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to pour in. All sorts of photos flooded into Sulpang's stream.

The next one to try was a pose with arms and chest pressed to the ground while lifting the hips. Was this yoga, too? In reality it would put a lot of strain on the lower back. I figured I could manage it, so I slowly raised my hips.

"This much is easy. You're really underestimating me."

"Wait, wait! Stop!"

"What now?"

"You have no idea what you're doing right now, do you?"

What am I doing?

I'd just been demonstrating a few poses, hadn't I?

Harboring lust while watching gymnastics or yoga poses is not a desirable thing. Both are, strictly speaking, sports or disciplines of self-cultivation. If someone demonstrates a pose of excellent completion, the proper response is wholesome applause—not a lecherous gaze.

So the one who should be embarrassed is not me. The people who ought to feel truly ashamed of themselves are the ones who zoomed in on a photo of my armpit in a handstand. The perverts who photographed the underwear between legs stretched into a straight line. The ones who typed things like "wanna bury my face in Gawol's ass" the moment I lifted my pelvis, and got banned for it.

Casting that kind of filthy look at an athlete is an extraordinary rudeness. Unthinkable. This is absolutely not something I should feel ashamed about.

"Hnnngh……"

That was what cold reason said. My fragile psyche, however, had long since been overrun and collapsed. I wanted to die of embarrassment. My face burned so hot I couldn't stand it without covering it. If I took my hands away right now, I was sure white steam would start rising from my cheeks in little puffs.

There was no real need to be embarrassed just because my body was a little more exposed than usual. My clothes had torn a few times in the Arena, and an assassin's costume was revealing by design to begin with. But this time the feeling was different. Back then, I'd been in the middle of a fight. This time, I'd gotten carried away and done it myself.

And looking at them all together… they're kind of lewd…

Gymnastics inevitably reveals the lines of the body. And both my body and Gawol's form were, even to the eyes of the man I used to be, extraordinarily beautiful. In the photos, I was stretching my body upward with my side and underarm exposed—white skin and smooth curves thrown into sharp relief. Magnified for such blatant purposes, it was hard to look at them with wholesome eyes. If even I felt that way, how much worse must it be for everyone else?

I'd been a man once, so I knew. This was going to last a long time. Especially those photos with my legs and hips fully on display—they weren't going to leave people's minds anytime soon. Gawol's appearance was a lightly modified version of my real self, which only made the mortification swell higher.

Having ended the stream, Sulpang trudged over to me. Come to think of it, he'd tried to stop me a few times in the middle. I'd just failed to notice and gone full throttle.

"Hey. I turned the stream off for now—want me to delete the VOD too?"

"Don't……"

"Huh?"

"Deleting it won't make everything disappear, and I did it because I was having fun. If you erase even that, it feels like only the bad parts are left."

Sometimes, certain people speak cheerfully of loss. They take situations that would make others recoil and reframe them as "not entirely bad" or "something I learned from"—receiving them as positives. Because otherwise, it simply becomes something lost.

I couldn't go that far yet… but I understood a little of what they meant.

Being the main character of a stream for the first time had been so much fun. It hadn't been like before, when I was just borrowing someone else's light for a moment. It felt like I'd seen that I had something shining of my own, too.

Was this also nothing more than a sweet dream? Even so, it was good. Tonight, at least, I wouldn't have nightmares. Outside the game, Han Daeun was still a hopeless case—but tonight, at least, she would be able to fall asleep happy.

So this much was just a small incident. If a few people crossed the line… I could always look up their game nicknames later. It was that simple a problem.

Even if it meant enduring my own embarrassment, I wanted to leave this dream behind as proof.

Ah, but still—embarrassing was embarrassing.

"Haaauu……"