Preference for Married Men?
I went down to the lower floor for my massage.
The stretching room was empty, same as always.
'I've never seen anyone in here.'
Maybe because I worked out early in the morning? The weight zone always had at least a few people.
Well, no skin off my back. It meant I got my massage in peace.
Seora noona pointed at the mat.
"Ahem. Lie face-down here?"
She cleared her throat more often than usual today — she must have felt the awkwardness too. I caught her stealing glances at me, as if gauging my mood.
"Yep. Ah, hold on."
I stopped mid-motion, just before lying on the mat, and pulled out my phone. There was something I wanted to ask before the massage started. If I showed her this and opened up a conversation, maybe this strained, awkward atmosphere would ease up a little.
"Nuna, how long do you think it'd take me to build a body like this?"
What I showed her was none other than Ahn Seong-hyeon's concept profile photo.
Nuna looked at the picture and spoke with a hint of wonder.
"Seong-hyeon's photo? I didn't know he did this kind of shoot."
"He said it was from last year."
"Really? Let me see."
Nuna studied the photo with a serious expression and gave her assessment.
"Even accounting for retouching, I'd say at least one or two years?"
"What? That long?"
I asked again, surprise creeping into my voice. I knew Ahn Seong-hyeon looked incredible in that photo, but I hadn't thought it would take that long. I did beat him at arm wrestling not long ago, after all. Was functional strength really that different from visible muscle?
Nuna chuckled at my reaction and added,
"And that's me being optimistic because it's you. For an average person, think three years minimum."
"Th-three years?"
"Of course. And even then, that's assuming you train consistently five times a week and nail your diet. Seong-hyeon started working out at sixteen, so he's going on five years now. Expecting to catch up to that in a few months is just greedy."
"...When you put it that way, yeah."
Hearing that, it made sense. I'd been shameless, trying to close a gap built over years in just a handful of months.
But Seora noona wasn't finished.
"Well, don't be too disappointed. What I just said factored in all the fine details, and at a normal training intensity."
If five workouts a week was normal, what did she consider intense?
I swallowed hard and rephrased the question.
"Then what if I train hard and lower the bar a little?"
"Train hard? Hmm, say you stay absolutely strict with your diet and train like a professional... about a year? Lower the bar from there... for a standard body profile shoot, three months should be plenty."
"That's way shorter?"
When I reacted with surprise, Seora noona smiled with a peculiar expression and said,
"You think I asked you to compete for nothing? You already have a solid muscle base. If you just cut body fat, your physique will come through nicely. Cheol-jin, you said you did home training for a year?"
"Yeah. I was pretty dedicated."
Back then, I didn't want to go to a crowded gym, so I threw myself into home training. Push-ups, pull-ups, squats. Looking back, it was surprising I'd kept at it. Even if it was just bodyweight, I weighed over 130kg at the time, so the load was enormous.
"Without that foundation, it would've taken way longer. Laying that groundwork with bodyweight training really shortened the timeline. Though your natural genetics played a big part too."
"...So training on my own was worth it after all."
I smiled faintly and nodded. It felt good to hear that all that time had meant something.
As I sat there quietly nodding, nuna asked in a cautious tone,
"But why the sudden interest in a body profile?"
"Ah, the concept profile thing came up at the club meeting yesterday."
"Concept profile?"
Seora noona tilted her head.
She hadn't been at the last club meeting, so it seemed she hadn't heard the news yet.
"We're doing SeoCo in August, right? They said anyone who wants to can do a concept profile shoot, like this photo."
"...You too?"
"I haven't decided yet... but honestly, I'm intrigued. Seeing Seong-hyeon's photos made it look pretty cool."
"Yeah? Well... never mind. Let me know if you decide. Exercise is my specialty, after all. And I am your personal trainer."
"Of course."
While I was at it, I showed her another photo. The competition photo of my father that I'd gotten my hands on a couple of days ago.
"Nuna, so how long do you think it'd take to reach this level?"
"Let me see... wait, what is this?"
Seora noona's eyes flew wide open. She looked utterly shocked and bewildered.
"L-let me see that up close."
"Ah, sure. Here..."
Tak! Seora noona snatched the phone from my hand. Her eyes, fixed intently on the photo, didn't blink for a single second.
"Whoaaa..."
"What's wrong?"
"......"
Seora noona was so absorbed in the photo that she didn't seem to have the presence of mind to answer me. Her mouth hung half-open, her eyes slightly unfocused. What the hell — it was almost unsettling.
"Nu-nuna?"
"Ah, uh, yeah!"
Nuna snapped to attention and looked at me. Then her gaze darted between the photo and my face as she asked,
"...Who is this? Your older brother? A relative?"
"No, I'm an only child. That's my father."
"WHAT?!"
Seora noona's jaw dropped in shock.
"F-father? But he looks way too young..."
"Well, it's an old photo."
"Ah..."
"I found out when I went to see him the day before yesterday. He used to work out when he was younger. Even won an amateur competition, apparently."
"Amateur competition? With this build, he could've won a major title."
Seora noona still spoke with a dazed expression. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the picture.
'My dad's pretty impressive.'
Along with a swell of pride, another thought crossed my mind.
Someday, I wanted to build a body just as impressive as my father's. No — even more impressive.
That was how good my father looked in that photo.
Of course, I wasn't saying I'd compete right away. I'd more or less made up my mind about the body profile, but competing was another matter entirely. Competing would demand a certain level of resolve.
I found myself scratching at the nape of my neck. My fingertips caught on something — not skin, but the texture of a cover sheet.
'I'd have to take this off to compete, wouldn't I?'
The tattoo cover sheets stuck to the back of my neck and my collarbone.
The countless cigarette burn scars hidden beneath.
That was one reason I'd written off the idea of competing. I wore the cover sheets so constantly they were practically a second skin, so at first I hadn't even thought about it. But when I reconsidered later, I realized I'd probably have to take them off to compete.
'The club members probably have a rough idea...'
I'd submitted <Escape from the Room Corner>, a fictionalized version of my past, as a club assignment. I'd hoped it wouldn't be obvious, but they'd probably all guessed it was drawn from my own life. And naturally, they'd probably figured out why I walked around with cover sheets on.
But knowing and openly exposing were two different things. The scars carried too much pain to show them off boldly.
And yet, if I wanted to compete, I'd eventually have to reveal those scars. To nuna, to the other club members, to total strangers I'd never even met.
Was I ready for that?
'I don't know.'
Even asking myself the question, I couldn't come up with a clear answer. Compared to before, the aversion had lessened significantly... but a trace of hesitation still lingered. If only it were a scar from some accident, it'd be fine. The problem with cigarette burns was that they made others speculate about your past.
'For now, let's just get the massage.'
I moved onto the mat and lay face-down. Maybe it was all the pointless thinking, but a wave of fatigue suddenly washed over me. Should've turned in a little earlier last night.
"Cheol-jin, I'm going to get on top, okay?"
"Yep."
Seora noona climbed onto my glutes to massage me from a comfortable position.
Mulkeong.
A soft sensation bloomed where our bodies touched.
I thought this every time I got a massage, but the feeling of butt against butt was truly bizarre. Especially today, with nuna in leggings — even more so.
The massage began in earnest.
Jumul-jumul.
The soft, kneading pressure at my glutes, and the relief radiating out wherever Seora noona's hands roamed.
Lying there quietly receiving the massage like this, it felt like all the worries in the world just melted away. As my muscles loosened, my mind seemed to loosen and relax too.
Bulkkeun.
The only problem was that something else was getting stiff. This damned libido of mine was uncontrollable.
'It feels like I'm committing a sin...'
Seora noona was giving me this massage out of pure kindness, and here I was, utterly shameless — sneaking a boner like some creep. You bastard, calm the hell down!
'...No, is it purely kindness?'
The memory of my very first massage suddenly surfaced. Nuna's hand, secretly brushing against my equipment. Back then, blood had rushed to my head, and I'd even spiraled into some delusional fantasies.
...Well, it was a relief she hadn't touched my dick since then. Honestly, a tiny part of me was disappointed... but if that kind of thing had happened repeatedly, I don't think I could have held back.
What if I misread the mood and made a move, and got rejected? Knowing my personality, I probably wouldn't have been able to face nuna after that.
If possible, I wanted to keep Seora noona in my life for a long time.
*
An Seo-ra swallowed hard as she massaged Kang Cheol-jin's body.
Human tastes were unimaginably diverse.
A face one person found handsome or beautiful, another found ugly.
Of course, each era had its universal standards of beauty, but there were always those who broke free of those molds, guided by their own firmly established criteria.
Sexual preferences, in particular, were vast in variety, deeply secretive, and utterly unique.
For example.
Alongside relatively common fetishes like feet or armpits, there existed desires beyond common sense — people who felt sexual attraction toward another's feces, or toward animals rather than humans.
The intriguing thing was that most people lived their whole lives without ever becoming aware of these personal inclinations. No doubt because they'd been shaped to fit society's universal mold.
Nevertheless, there came moments when latent desires clawed their way to the surface.
An Seo-ra was experiencing exactly that right now.
Ever since seeing the photo of Kang Cheol-jin's father a moment ago, she hadn't been able to control her pounding heart.
'Wh-what is this? Why am I like this?'
Twenty-three-year-old lifelong single An Seo-ra.
She'd never once been in a relationship, but she'd received plenty of confessions from men.
Hot-blooded early twenties.
It wasn't for lack of popularity that she'd stayed single all this time — it was because she'd never once felt those proverbial butterflies.
She was interested in the opposite sex, of course.
But the butterflies never came.
No matter how well-mannered or good-looking the guy was.
Not even a guy with sharply defined six-pack abs and an incredible physique could make her heart flutter.
She'd even doubted her own sexual identity at times.
'Why — why am I getting butterflies over a married man's photo, you crazy bitch!'
Right now, those butterflies had finally arrived.