Chapter 10
Han Yaseong offered a half-hearted excuse.
"I was just loosening up a little. Copying stuff I'd seen in martial arts movies."
"No way. You're seriously skilled. I've got plenty of friends who work out, and none of them can kick like that. You're a black belt, right? Taekwondo? Hapkido? Or is it Chinese martial arts?"
"Nothing like that. I just mess around on my own. Ah, I should get going. I've got a fishing line set out."
Han Yaseong made a quick escape. He had no desire to keep talking about it.
"Hey, wait—"
Choi Yujin called after him as he turned his back and fled, but it was useless. Not knowing his name didn't help either.
"Who was that kid?"
Choi Yujin pressed a finger to her chin and thought hard. She had a rough memory of his face, but his name wouldn't come. She barely knew the names of the second-years; there was no chance she'd know a first-year's. On top of that, this was her first club outing of the year, so everyone outside her fellow third-years was still a stranger.
She kept trying to dredge up the name of the runaway first-year freshman before finally giving up and looking down at the marks his kicks had left in the dirt.
"Whew. That was some serious skill. His feet barely even touched the ground."
It was the kind of thing she'd only ever seen in old Chinese kung fu movies. Choi Yujin had always liked guys who were good at sports. Not the straight-A bookworms—guys who could fight, who could move. So of course she couldn't help taking an interest in Han Yaseong. At first he'd looked like just another soft boy, but watching him kick had blown that impression apart. A hidden expert.
She still couldn't get over how stunned she'd been, mid-pee in the woods, when she'd spotted him practicing. She'd finished her business and still stayed crouched there watching his kicks for a long while, too absorbed to stand up. Only when a cold draft hit her open crotch did she remember what she'd been doing—wiped herself with tissue, stood, and drifted toward him as if pulled by something.
Choi Yujin smiled at the chaotic scatter of kick marks on the ground.
"A carnivore just walked into the feeble Mystery Club."
And a hidden master, at that. A first-year freshman boy, no less. Thinking how refreshingly green that felt, Choi Yujin hurried back toward the tents.
"I'm telling you, that kid's kicks were insane."
"Really?"
In the girls' tent, the chatter never stopped. Han Yaseong had failed to account for that—for the fact that Senior Choi Yujin would tell everyone. He'd figured if he just got out of the moment, it'd be over. Instead she'd come back and spread it far and wide. He hadn't reckoned on a woman's loose tongue and love of gossip. So now everyone knew.
"You really that good at kicking?"
Even one of the guys in his year asked, looking genuinely surprised. Han Yaseong sighed. He should have asked Senior Choi Yujin to keep it quiet… Running away was starting to feel like a mistake.
"Yaseong! Show us a kick!"
Choi Yujin—who had learned his name through Euna—called out with a grin. Han Yaseong, mortified, just stared off somewhere else. She kept calling Yaseong, Yaseong, then suddenly burst out laughing.
"Hehe, that name is too funny. Yaseong… Well, your kicks sure are wild enough. You look like such a herbivore, though."
She kept boasting about him so loudly that every girl and guy present turned to stare at Han Yaseong. The silent pressure to actually demonstrate a kick was unmistakable. He had no choice but to show them something simple, a couple of times.
"Uh, I just do it as a hobby. It's really not that impressive."
"Come on, just do it. Let us see."
Curious eyes fixed on him from every direction. Resigned, Han Yaseong threw a couple of simple kicks. Whap-whap—his body tipped slightly left as his right foot snapped through the air twice in succession. Simple moves. Simple kicks. But those simple moves and kicks were so perfect they stole every gaze in the clearing.
"Whoa, that's awesome!"
One of the guys in his year let out a cry of pure admiration. These weren't clumsy kicks. The crisp precision rivaled a real martial artist's technique—no, you could have believed they were a real martial artist's kicks. That refined, disciplined, flawless form. None of them knew martial arts, but they had eyes. They could tell at once that what Han Yaseong had just done existed on a completely different level from anything ordinary kids could manage. Like watching a kickboxing champion.
Everyone stared at him in amazement. The girls' reactions ran even hotter. Their bodies answered what their eyes took in—something inside them flinched. Choi Yujin worst of all. Watching Han Yaseong kick again, her parted folds fluttered for an instant. A faint slickness was already seeping out.
Choi Yujin had always loved watching fights and combat sports. That kind of thing got her worked up. Her boyfriends had always been that type—athletes, or beast-mode guys who could scrap. She couldn't stand bookish soft boys. They looked too fragile. And yet here was Han Yaseong, who looked every bit the frail soft boy, unleashing incredible kicks. The sheer contradiction made her pussy flutter whether she liked it or not.
The other girls felt it too, in varying degrees—their bodies reacting. The first-year girl kept gasping wow in open wonder, while the second-year seniors stood with their mouths hanging open in surprise. Even Jang Euna, third-year and club president, was thoroughly stunned.
First-year Han Yaseong. Just a quiet freshman who looked a little drained. No one had ever imagined him as the athletic type. Sure, he'd slimmed down some from working out lately, but that was all anyone had assumed. A textbook herbivore—perfect mascot material for the feeble Mystery Club. And then he pulled off movie-worthy kicks, and a small ripple went through every heart present. Cool, that feeling. The simple view of him as a fellow club member and underclassman flipped, in an instant, into genuine attraction.
And with it came the memory of last night.
It was Yaseong who carried us back to the tent…
Only then did they remember how he had scooped each of them up and laid them down inside. He'd lifted them so easily. Real strength. They'd been too drunk to think straight, but instinct had registered it—that he hadn't strained at all while carrying them in and settling them down. Remembering that only made Han Yaseong seem more solid and reliable. Outwardly he still looked like a total weakling.
"You're seriously amazing. What kind of training do you do?"
The guys—classmates and seniors alike—were just as shocked. Not with envy or jealousy, but with open goodwill. If there'd been a carnivore among them he might have dismissed it and sneered, but every guy here was a herbivore. No reason for jealousy. If anything, they swarmed him like fan-club members, begging for more.
"Got anything else? Can you do aerial kicks?"
The guys crowded in, urging him to try this and that. Han Yaseong didn't want to, but he couldn't refuse. Kicking in front of people was a first for him. At some point he slipped into a whatever happens, happens mood and started working through every request they threw at him. Jumping high for soaring kicks, spinning back-kicks, full three-sixty turning kicks, leaping double kicks, then whirling like a top through a chain of continuous strikes—he tore through them like some wuxia master. The guys clapped and went wild; the girls in the tent cheered and whooped.
Hearing it, Han Yaseong got fired up himself. He'd never heard cheers like this before. Being the center of attention was brand new. For the first time in his life, Han Yaseong was a star. Receiving someone's cheers was an incredible thing. Temporary as it was, he could almost understand how celebrities felt soaking up a crowd's roar. That day, he had an extraordinary experience—feeling, with a full-body thrill, the vivid, living sense that he was truly alive among other people.
"Is this how you do it?"
The guys lined up in a row, completely absorbed in trying kicks of their own. After Han Yaseong's demonstration, something must have caught fire in them; they were all flailing away at it, like kids mimicking wrestlers after a match on TV. Fortunately the girls tried a few half-hearted hyah-hyah kicks and then quit. Watching had been fun; doing it was not. The guys stood in a clump going yah, yah with their clumsy attempts—more from leftover excitement than any real intent. After about ten minutes they were worn out and gave up.
"You're really something. How long have you been at this? A year or two wouldn't get you that good."
Even while they prepped lunch, the talk stayed locked on Han Yaseong's kicks. The first-year guys in particular grilled him relentlessly.
"I just did it here and there. When I was bored, you know."
"Since you were a kid, right?"
"Yeah."
He couldn't exactly say he'd trained for a year in that other world, so he simply admitted he'd been at it since childhood.
"Looking at you, I'd never have guessed you trained at all. You should've come out for the club sports day. You probably would've taken at least one event."
A third-year senior guy looked genuinely disappointed. Han Yaseong only learned later that the Mystery Club had gone to the school club sports meet and lost every single match. Five events, five losses—most of them dead last. Utterly humiliating. But that was the Mystery Club tradition. Its members were simply useless at anything physical.