Leisure Time (4)
“Haa… This is already the second time, but I still can’t get used to it. Why?”
“It’s just planting a seed in a pot. Why are you overthinking it so much?”
After Kim Seo-hee went home, I immediately pulled out the pot and soil I’d bought last time and finished preparing everything. But no matter what, I couldn’t get accustomed to the act itself. It was just planting a seed in a pot—such a simple thing—yet it felt incredibly awkward. When I thought about how this seed was, in a way, my own child, a strange and complex emotion rose up. It wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but calling it pleasant didn’t feel right either.
“I don’t know.”
I dug a small hole in the center of the soil with my finger, dropped the seed into the space, then gathered the surrounding dirt to cover it.
“Done.”
“Oppa, you’re surprisingly sentimental. You’ll probably be a great father when you have real children someday.”
“Stop teasing me.”
“I’m not teasing. I already told you, didn’t I? Someday, I want to have your real child.”
Lee Chae-yun rose from the bed and walked toward me.
“…Want to try making one tonight?♡”
She was already showing plenty of bare skin. Now she slightly lifted the hem of her pajamas, revealing the underwear hidden beneath the thin fabric, and tempted me with a seductive smile.
“…Alright.”
“…Wait a second.”
The moment I leaned in to kiss her lips that had drawn so close to my face, she slipped past me and stared intently at the pot.
“…Shit.”
Feeling strangely embarrassed, my face flushed. I scratched my cheek with a finger and asked,
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“…It’s weird.”
“What is?”
She was now sitting down, holding the pot and examining the spot where the seed had been planted from every angle. What was she reacting to? I gave up on trying to get an answer from her—she was completely absorbed in the pot—and leaned over her shoulder to see for myself.
“…Huh?”
I immediately understood why she was acting this way. A small, vigorous sprout had already pushed up from the exact spot where I’d planted the seed.
Our eyes were locked on it. But that wasn’t all. Even now, the sprout was visibly growing larger at an impossible speed. It was like watching a nature documentary on fast-forward. The stem stretched longer, the leaves shifted from pale green to a vibrant, powerful emerald, and a flower bud formed at the very tip.
“…This can’t be happening.”
It was Chae-yun who spoke, not me. For the first time since coming to this world, she was experiencing something that completely defied her common sense.
These things did grow quickly, I knew that. The first time I planted a seed, I’d already thought the speed was ridiculous. Blooming a flower in twenty-four hours was strange enough, but now—less than five minutes, no, not even two minutes after planting—the bud was steadily opening.
“…Is this normal?”
“No.”
I’d asked thinking maybe I just didn’t understand the process, but apparently that wasn’t the case. We kept watching, and soon the flower bloomed fully. It looked slightly different from the pure white ones I’d seen before. Not drastically so, but enough to notice. The petals that had once shone pure white without any color now carried a subtle, gentle blue glow.
Chae-yun frowned at the sight of the flower.
“…What the hell is this?”
That was exactly what I wanted to ask.
In the now-silent room, Chae-yun examined the flower with meticulous care while I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it either.
“…This blue light.”
I’d seen it somewhere. And recently, at that. It didn’t take long to dig through my recent memories until the blue light surfaced clearly in my mind.
The shining apple I’d obtained after smashing the machine carried by those men in black. The blue light it had emitted was identical to this.
Puzzle pieces clicked together one by one. I had eaten that apple. After eating it, I gained a strange new power. The person who had conceived a seed after I obtained that power was none other than Seo-hee. And the seed that had just bloomed this blue flower in the pot was also the one Seo-hee had given me.
It was my influence. Probably.
“…This is fascinating. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Not even in your ancestors’ memories?”
“…At least there’s nothing like this in the genetic memories of our kind.”
Even Chae-yun didn’t know what this meant. At this point, there seemed to be no way to figure it out.
“Then this will do. Oppa, try using this.”
“What?”
Chae-yun plucked one of the blue-tinged petals and held it out to me.
“Find a suitable person and test it. It’ll be easier to figure it out yourself than to just let it rot here.”
“You’re right about that.”
I accepted the petal and placed it on my palm, studying it closely. I still couldn’t tell anything about it just by looking.
“You’re going to the gym tomorrow anyway, right?”
“Ah, that’s true.”
I had agreed to visit the gym Chae-yun recommended over the weekend for a consultation. As she spoke, she kept glancing back and forth between me and the petal, smiling softly. I had no idea what was going through her head. I felt like I could almost guess, yet I couldn’t quite grasp it.
The next morning.
I was only twenty years old, but I had assumed exercise would never have any connection to my life. I certainly never imagined I would end up at a professional gym with high-level training equipment instead of just casually playing soccer or basketball in the neighborhood.
The heated atmosphere radiating from every direction and the unfamiliar smell of rubber mats completely filled the space.
“…Whoa.”
It was my first time in a place like this, so I had no idea what to do. I stood there blankly, looking around the interior of the gym. Soon I felt several pairs of eyes glancing at me from different spots. They were probably just curious because I was a new face.
“Ah, are you Mr. Im Chan-woo? The one who called?”
While I was being pierced by the collective gaze of everyone in the gym, a rather tall middle-aged man suddenly appeared from the side and spoke to me directly.
“Yes, I’m Im Chan-woo.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Hong Hyun-chul, the owner here.”
“Ah, hello.”
He had a genuinely likable face. Smiling warmly, he gave a slight bow and extended his hand for a handshake. I took it—his hand was roughly one and a half times larger than mine and heavily calloused.
“As you mentioned yesterday, you’re here simply to exercise as a hobby?”
“Yes. You said you also accept students for the hobby class.”
“What a shame. You have an excellent physique for training.”
The owner glanced over my body from toe to head, then touched my forearm with his thick hand.
“Ah, I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine…”
Realizing his rudeness, he quickly pulled his hand back in surprise and took two steps away from me. Whatever else he might be, he seemed like a very friendly, outgoing man.
“Then shall we talk in more detail in the office first?”
“Sure.”
The office we entered was a simple space with minimal furnishings. Aside from a computer and desk in the corner, a wall-mounted TV, and a sofa for guests, it was mostly filled with exercise equipment.
“So if you register for the hobby class…”
As I sat on the sofa looking around, the owner handed me a cup of coffee and began explaining everything about the gym.
“…Just let me know which times work for you.”
“Weekday afternoons. And would weekends be okay too? The people exercising out there look like athletes, so I was worried I might be a nuisance if I came on the weekend…”
“No problem at all. Most of them aren’t athletes. Only one person is currently preparing for competition.”
The owner answered every question kindly and thoroughly. Deciding that was enough, he stood up and asked,
“Would you like to try exercising a bit before you leave today?”
“Is that alright?”
I followed the smiling owner out of the office. He handed me a jump rope.
“Since it’s your first day, let’s start with some simple cardio.”
Jump rope. I hadn’t touched one since elementary school.
“How many should I do?”
“Until you feel like you can’t go on anymore.”
“….”
I could finally remember why I had hated exercising so much as a kid.
I let out a breath—half sigh, half deep inhale—and began jumping. When I was young, even ten jumps had been difficult. Now as an adult trying it again after so long, it didn’t feel particularly hard.
Thirty, forty… seventy, eighty. Before I knew it, I had reached a hundred. It still didn’t feel difficult. One hundred twenty, one hundred thirty.
Around the time I approached two hundred, I finally noticed something was wrong. I realized the reason my formerly terrible stamina wasn’t failing me wasn’t because I had simply gotten older. I faked exhaustion, deliberately catching the rope around my foot to stop.
“….”
“Chan-woo, keep going.”
“Sorry?”
“You don’t look tired at all.”
I awkwardly rubbed my cheek and wiped my forehead. Not a single drop of sweat.
“I… I can’t do any more. It’s too hard.”
“But…?”
The owner stared at me, swallowing dryly. I really was terrible at acting.
As I scratched my head and started coiling up the jump rope, a familiar voice came from behind me.
“Dad, is Noona here?”
“Your sister isn’t home?”
“If she was, I wouldn’t have come here. If she’s not at the gym or home, where else would she be?”
“Go look for her yourself. Dad’s busy.”
The owner’s son? But this voice didn’t sound particularly welcome to my ears.
The moment I turned around with that thought, I immediately regretted it. I should never have turned.
“…Im Chan-woo?”
“…Nice to meet you.”
I didn’t know his name, but we were already acquainted. I hadn’t known who he was or what he did, but he was the person who hated me more than anyone else in the world.
“What? You know each other?”
“…He’s my junior from the same university, Dad.”
He was Lee Chae-yun’s ex-boyfriend. I should have realized the moment she recommended a gym like this.
“…Nice to meet you, sunbae. I’m Im Chan-woo.”
“…I know.”
Fuck. I’m screwed.