Leisure Time (5)
A brief silence settled between me and my senior. The gym owner studied the strange tension crackling between us. Nothing useful came to mind to say, so I just kept fiddling with the jump rope still clutched in my hand. No matter what I said, I would only ever be the bastard who deserved killing in his eyes. At the same time, standing there like a mute with honey smeared across my lips felt like it would only make this insane atmosphere worse.
“...You work out here?”
“Sorry?”
“I asked if you work out here.”
“Ah, yes. That’s how it turned out.”
My senior’s calmer-than-expected answer left me slightly puzzled.
“...That’s good, then. I’m Hong Su-ho.”
“Ah, yes.”
He suddenly thrust his hand out in front of me. I set the jump rope on the floor, wiped the sweat off my palm with my shirt, and shook his hand.
“...Then I’ll go find my sister.”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
Even as he left the gym, he kept his hand on the door handle, staring at me until the door actually opened. Watching him like that stirred a flicker of pity.
“You know my son? That’s weird. He’s usually so shy he doesn’t talk to people first. He actually introduced himself?”
The gym owner’s reaction made the pity sink in deeper. This was the first time I’d seen him up close, and even though our exchange had been too short to count as real conversation, I could already piece together what kind of man he was.
He really had loved Chae-yun. That was why he’d never told his family, why he’d buried his wounds so deep he never let them show. But if the son of a bitch he believed had stolen his woman suddenly appeared right in front of him… Ugh. I didn’t even want to imagine it.
That was why he seemed so pathetic. My senior still couldn’t forget Chae-yun, and he was aiming his resentment at the wrong target.
“Does he act that rude at school too?”
“I wouldn’t know. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken to him.”
I cut the conversation short after the gym owner, happy to meet his son’s acquaintance, tried to joke with me. Then I adjusted my grip on the jump rope and started jumping again.
“Huh. You can keep going.”
People say exercise clears your head of distracting thoughts, but I didn’t feel any of that. It wasn’t tiring at all, and the random thoughts kept swirling anyway.
I kept at it for roughly an hour. The morning sun that had been climbing earlier now hung high in the sky, yet I still wasn’t sweating and my breathing remained perfectly steady. I had no idea how many jumps I’d done. Once the count passed three digits it became annoying, so I stopped counting.
“...Now what?”
I turned my head and scanned the gym, but the owner was nowhere to be seen. Where did he go? Maybe he was helping other members. I rose onto my tiptoes to peer deeper into the gym, but he was still nowhere in sight.
“...”
This felt like déjà vu. It was the same helpless, what-the-hell-am-I-supposed-to-do feeling I’d had when I first stepped into this gym. At twenty years old, I was experiencing the sensation of being a lost child all over again.
Someone shoved me hard from behind.
The push was sudden and carried so much raw power that it couldn’t possibly have been a joke. I didn’t even have time to regain my balance before I crashed face-first into the floor.
At first there was only confusion. Still dazed, I lifted my head to see who had pushed me. Because my face had slammed into the ground, my vision refused to focus and everything looked blurry. The short black hair made me think it was a man at first, but then a thin, clearly female voice reached my ears and corrected me.
“...Is it you?”
“Huh?”
My blurry vision slowly sharpened. The woman’s face came into focus. I had mistaken her for a man because of the short haircut, but her voice and the long, beautifully curved eyelashes confirmed she was female. She wore a tracksuit top and shorts, her skin tanned a light brown from constant exposure to the sun. She was slightly taller than Seo-hee, who was already tall for a woman.
After knocking me down, she immediately did something shocking.
“I asked if it was you. Are you mute?”
She kicked me in the face. With a cold tone and expression, she kept spitting venom while lightly tapping my face with her foot—tap, tap.
“...What exactly are you doing?”
Anger flared at the woman treating my face like a piece of trash she was kicking, but I swallowed it down and asked in the calmest voice I could produce. She arrogantly ignored my question and kept talking.
“Are you Im Chan-woo?”
“Wait, sis! What the hell are you doing?”
“Let go, you idiot. If you’re that scared, don’t walk around looking so fucking pathetic.”
Su-ho senior came sprinting into the gym, forehead drenched in sweat, and grabbed the woman’s arm. She shook him off and hurled abuse at her own brother instead.
This woman who already knew my name—looking at the situation, the reason was obvious.
“Hey. Spar with me.”
“W-wait, Su-a. This guy only just started coming today…”
The small disturbance drew people over one by one. Someone called her name, trying to calm her down, but it was pointless.
“So what if he just started? Does that mean he can’t spar?”
“Sis, please stop. If Dad finds out…!”
“Stop whining. No wonder you got your girl stolen by a loser like this.”
“....What?”
A nasty current flowed between the siblings. After glaring at her brother for a moment, the woman called Su-a let out a sigh, shook off the hand still holding her, looked down at me, and spoke.
“Mister, bring me some headgear and gloves.”
“Huh? One set?”
“Just the headgear for him. Gloves for me. You said he only started today, right? A handicap should be fine.”
Without even looking at the man in the watching crowd, she took the headgear he handed over and threw it straight at me.
“Put it on. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.”
She pulled on her own gloves as she spoke, then climbed into the crude ring set up in the middle of the gym first.
“....”
I lifted my head and looked at my senior. He didn’t even notice my gaze. His head was lowered, fists clenched so tightly that blood was seeping between his fingers. I couldn’t see his expression, but it didn’t look like he had ratted me out to his sister.
“You just going to sit there?”
I glanced at the woman who couldn’t wait even a second before spitting more curses.
If this would ease even a little of the resentment lodged in that man’s chest and help him let go of his lingering feelings, then fine. I wanted him to stop paying attention to Chae-yun. She no longer felt even the slightest emotion toward Su-ho senior, and the woman she was now was nothing like the girlfriend he remembered.
You won’t gain anything by getting involved. She’s already someone you can’t handle. So clear your mind with this and leave us the hell alone.
I put on the headgear I had never worn before in my life and climbed into the ring. Standing across from her in the wide-open space, I could see her body in sharp detail. It was the most professionally trained physique I had ever seen. The pride born from that effort was probably what made her so arrogant.
But no matter how much effort she had poured into it, I could crush that pride in a single breath. Part of me wanted to. Yet I wouldn’t. I would just take a few hits, leave, get scolded by Chae-yun when I got back, and find a new gym.
Having decided not to attack, I took a sloppy, half-assed stance.
The referee confirmed I was ready and rang the bell. The clear, bright tone that you often hear on UFC broadcasts echoed through the gym.
In an instant the woman closed the distance and slammed her fist into my right cheek.
“...”
My brain rattled. My jaw throbbed. But beyond that, I felt nothing. Ah, fuck. How many times have I passed out this year alone…?
“Are you awake now?”
“...Where am I…?”
“The hospital.”
White ceiling. A lamp shining so brightly it felt like it would scorch my eyes. Chae-yun looked down at me as I lay there, her head blocking the worst of the glare. Beside her, the gym owner was fidgeting anxiously. The moment he saw my eyes open, he bowed deeply before I could say a word and offered a sincere apology.
“I’m truly sorry. While I stepped away for work, my daughter did something like this… I’m so sorry!”
“...It’s fine.”
My head felt foggy. I had planned to take a few hits and walk out on my own two feet. Instead I had been carried here.
Still lying down, I turned my head toward Chae-yun and spoke in a whisper the gym owner wouldn’t hear.
“You did that on purpose.”
“I did do it on purpose, but I didn’t expect Su-a unnie to get involved.”
Seeing her awkward smile and the sweat on her face, it really seemed she hadn’t known about that bitch.
That aside, why hadn’t my danger sense picked up an attack strong enough to knock me unconscious? I wondered if something was wrong with my head, so I smacked my temple like I was hitting a broken TV. It only made my headache worse.
I’d figure that out later. My head hurt from lying down too long. The moment I placed my hands on the bed to push myself up, I felt something strange in my palm.
“...?”
Something was clenched in my hand. I opened it. A small scrap of paper. Written on it in small, messy handwriting were the words:
Just those two short, graffiti-like words. Yet the humiliating sting on my cheek and the eyes that had looked at me like I was garbage seemed to bleed through the ink.
“....”
“I’m truly sorry. We’ll refund your membership fee and naturally cover all medical costs. If there’s anything else you need, please call—”
“No.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m going to keep coming here, Director.”
No matter what it took, by any means necessary, I wanted to see it. I wanted to watch Hong Su-a—that walking lump of pride—collapse and become filthy.
“...Oppa really has changed a lot too…♡”