How Long Are You Going to Keep Touching Me?
Her upper body was plainly soft. A slim frame with barely any muscle to speak of. Her lower body, though, was another story entirely.
As she sank into the squat, her pants clung to her skin and revealed a pair of glutes and quads that were anything but ordinary. Put simply, the line running from her thighs up through her hips was spectacular. Of every woman I had ever seen in person, she had the most beautiful thighs and backside. They weren't particularly thick, but the potential for development was obvious. It was the kind of hip line you could fall for at first glance. The firmness of it seemed to punch right through her clothes.
"Hngh…! Hah."
Kim Sehee let out a hot breath as she finished the last rep.
"Ugh, this is sneakily hard."
"Sit down and rest for a bit."
"Okay."
Fifteen reps with textbook form. Her posture had been so perfect that the muscle had no choice but to take the load.
"Knees okay?"
"Yeah. They're fine."
"Good."
The rest wasn't long. A single exercise, a short set count — anything over thirty seconds was a luxury. Rest too long and you could end up working out without seeing any results.
"Let's get started again."
"Huh? Already?"
"We've only got one lower-body exercise. Get up."
"Ugh. Okay…"
We lined up in front of the mirror again and started squatting. Down, then up. We repeated that for two more sets of fifteen, and under the pretext of checking her form, I kept watching Kim Sehee's thighs.
She's really solid.
"Ugh…! Can you see my thighs shaking?"
When the third and final set was over, Kim Sehee's thighs trembled, just barely. Fifteen reps times three sets, on her very first squats. I was pretty sure I'd only managed sets of twelve when I first tried them. Her lower-body strength was better than I'd expected. That, and the way she'd climbed those stairs so easily… I guess she hadn't been wasting those daily walks after all.
"Grab some water and let's try pull-ups."
"Okay!"
The words were barely out of my mouth before Kim Sehee was making for the water cooler as fast as her legs would carry her — not quite a run. She pulled a disposable paper cup, filled it, and held it out to me before taking a sip herself.
"Oppa. You first."
"Thanks."
"Hehe."
She pulled another cup, filled it, and drank.
"Ahhh. That's cold!"
Kim Sehee gulped it down and went back for another mouthful. Lower-body work always left you winded the way cardio did, which was exactly why the water tasted so good. Ice-cold water wasn't supposed to be great for the body, but when you were gasping for air, it might as well have been the water of life.
We headed for the pull-up station. Before we started, I asked her,
"What's the most pull-ups you've ever done?"
"Uh… one?"
Kim Sehee scratched her cheek, looking sheepish.
"Want to give it a try?"
"Okay."
She grabbed the bar and strained her way up, grunting. Her upper back rounded in on itself, and the head that should have been looking at the ceiling was tipped down toward the floor from the effort. The form was completely wrong.
"Stop and come down for me?"
I called her off the bar at once.
"Is something wrong?"
"Yeah. You're going to hurt yourself like that. Come here."
Kim Sehee stepped aside, and I took the bar in her place.
"Watch me first."
"Okaaay."
With my hands on the bar, I fired my lats. Thinking of it as putting power into my back, I opened my chest, arched my spine, and pulled my arms down. Since my hands were locked on the bar and couldn't come to me, my body came to them instead. I tipped my chin over the bar, held for a second, then lowered myself slowly — fighting the weight the whole way, feeding the stimulus into my back. Slow. Very slow.
"Whoa. So that's how you do it."
Kim Sehee, watching me hang there and descend at a crawl, let out a sound of genuine awe. I had been so locked onto the burn in my back that I'd forgotten she was even there. The gasp of admiration snapped me out of it, and I dropped back to the floor. Then, as naturally as if the demonstration had been the whole point, I opened my mouth.
"Sehee, you don't have the strength yet, so it looks like you're pulling with just your arms. Let's start with the hold, like I just did."
"Okay!"
Not a bad bit of improvisation. I stepped aside, and Kim Sehee took the bar again.
"Engage your back and jump up like you're trying to stick your chest to the bar. Watch the ceiling so you don't bang your head."
"Okay."
"I'll help you hold. Mind if I grab your back?"
"Yeah. That's fine."
She nodded without a second's hesitation. Cool. I liked that.
I set my hands under her shoulder blades, just below the scapulae. I could feel something thin and strap-like under my palms, and I had a pretty good idea what it was, but that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was pull-ups.
"One, two, three."
On my count, Kim Sehee jumped. She rose into a stable position and, matching my support, lowered herself slowly.
"The second your feet hit the ground — go!"
"Hup!"
She sucked in a breath and jumped again, rising with the exact form I'd shown her.
"Good form. Three!"
"Hnh…!"
Through my palms, I could feel her lats starting to switch on, little by little.
"Your back's engaging well. Four!"
"Hngh…!"
Her holding strength was fading. She was coming down faster now, so I braced as hard as I could to catch her.
"One more! Last one, five!"
"Hyaaugh…!"
"Wha—"
A suddenly sultry little moan slipped out of her. It was the kind of sticky sound I'd only ever heard in porn, and it brushed right against my ear — and for a split second, my hands slipped.
Kim Sehee had only been staying up because I was supporting her. The instant that support vanished, her body dropped. To make matters worse, the falling force tore her hands off the bar as well. She was about to hit the floor. It wasn't that high a drop, but everything had happened in a blink, and the odds of her landing cleanly without getting hurt were very, very low.
The panic lasted only a moment. I snapped back to myself and, in the same instant my hands had slipped, shoved my arms back in. They slid through under her armpits. I hauled her in as if I were wrapping her up, and I caught her just before her feet hit the ground.
"……Whoa. That was close."
I let out a breath of relief. I had almost gotten her hurt through my own mistake. If she'd gone down like that, she could have rolled an ankle — or landed hard on her tailbone and cracked it. Catching her had been a stroke of luck. I couldn't have been more rattled.
"O-Oppa."
"Ah, yeah. Sorry. You almost got hurt because of me."
"Ah, no, that's not— …how long are you going to keep holding me? This is embarrassing……"
"Huh? ……Wha—!"
I realized, a beat too late, exactly where my hands were.
The underside of her chest. My wrists were wedged in her armpits, and my hands were holding her breasts. The whole thing had been so sudden I'd just grabbed, and of all places, I'd grabbed her chest. That explained why it had settled so neatly into my palms.
I set Kim Sehee down in a hurry. The height was such that she only needed to point her toes to land — I just had to pull my arms out.
"S-sorry."
"It's fine."
"I'm really sorry. I, uh, I just grabbed without thinking, it was so sudden……"
"No, really. It's not like my chest is going to wear out from being touched. I'm a little embarrassed, but I didn't get hurt thanks to you catching me, Oppa."
Kim Sehee soothed me while I was still flailing. Flip it around and it would have been like she'd grabbed my dick, and yet she was the one staying calm. I had to have squeezed hard enough to hurt, too. She smiled and waved it off, telling me it was fine.
"I think I've got the feel of the pull-up now. Should I try it on my own?"
"Huh? Y-yeah. S-sure. No, wait — let's rest a bit first."
"Okaaay."
I stepped back for a moment. I dragged a hand across my forehead, and sweat soaked my palm.
Whoa. Look at all this sweat.
In that handful of seconds, cold sweat had run down my forehead and even my back. That was how badly I'd panicked. Out of habit, I lifted the hem of my T-shirt and wiped my forehead. My stomach came into view, and the hem still wasn't enough to get the whole job done. It left a sweat stain along the bottom of the shirt, but I was going to change anyway, so I didn't care.
"Hooo……"
I finished wiping and let out a breath, lifting my head. My eyes met Kim Sehee's. She was looking right at me, perfectly still. For a second, I thought her cheeks looked faintly flushed.
"……What?"
"Ah, it's nothing."
Kim Sehee whipped her head away. I wondered what that was about, then understood almost immediately. Of course. There was no way she was actually fine after I'd grabbed her chest. Flip it around — if Kim Sehee had grabbed my balls, could I really have been unfazed? She was only pretending it was okay to soothe me, the man, because she was the woman.
Embarrassment like that didn't just evaporate. I could feel an awkward silence starting to settle, so I got out ahead of it.
"Shall we start?"
"Huh? Ah, yes!"
Kim Sehee took the bar again. She'd said she would try it alone, but I had no idea how long she could actually hold. Starting together from the beginning, so she could feel her back engaging, still seemed like the better call.
"I won't let go this time. Let's try again."
"Ah……! Okay."
The moment my hands touched her back, she flinched, just slightly. It was connected to her chest, so I supposed she was conscious of it. Maybe that was actually a good thing. The spot I was holding was her lats. If she kept her attention there, she would naturally start to feel the muscle switch on.
We started again.
"One. Two. Hold as long as you can — three!"
"Hnnngh…!"
That sticky moan again. I wasn't falling for it twice. I focused and braced her lats.
"Jump right away! Four!"
"Hah! Hnnnngh……!"
She was lowering herself on a hold, and the sounds she was making were something else. My ears were itching so badly I thought I might lose my mind.
"Last one. Five!"
She didn't seem aware of it. She was so locked onto holding herself up that she clearly didn't have the bandwidth to police her own breathing.
"Knnnngh……!"
Kim Sehee held on, her back trembling. The sounds were a little much, sure. But watching her give it everything she had until the very end was admirable.
"Hah, hah…"
She came down gasping.
"Sit down and rest."
"Hah, okay. Hoo."
I was pretty sure my brain was rotting. Even that breathing was starting to sound filthy. I tried not to dwell on it, but the sticky moans I'd heard during the pull-ups kept circling through my head.
"Hah, hah."
Do I have a breathing fetish?
Once I'd noticed it, I couldn't stop noticing it. A bead of sweat tracing the line of her jaw. The round stain it left where it fell on her chest. Her chest rising and falling without a pause as she fought for air.
I stared at Kim Sehee, dazed. I hadn't even been working out, and my heart was pounding.
It was an emotion I couldn't name.