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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Simzy
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I went downstairs for a massage.
The stretching room was, as usual, completely empty.
‘I’ve never seen anyone in here.’
Was it because I worked out early in the morning? Still, the weight zone usually has some people.
Well, it’s not bad for me since I can get a massage comfortably.
Seora noona pointed to the mat.
“Ahem. Could you lie face down here?”
Her frequent throat-clearing today suggested there was indeed an awkwardness. She also seemed to be subtly watching my reaction.
“Yes. Oh, just a moment.”
I was about to lie face down on the mat when I pulled out my phone. I had something to ask before the massage. If I showed her this and started a conversation, maybe this subtle and awkward atmosphere would loosen up a bit?
“Noona, how long do you think it would take for me to get a body like this?”
What I showed her was Ahn Sung-hyun’s concept profile photo.
Seeing the photo, noona said, surprised,
“It’s Sung-hyun’s photo? He took something like this too.”
“He said he took it last year.”
“Really? Let me see.”
Noona, now with a serious expression, examined the photo and commented,
“Considering the touch-ups, I think it would take 1 to 2 years to get to this level.”
“What? That long?”
I asked back, a little surprised. Ahn Sung-hyun’s body in the photo looked good, but I didn’t think it would take that long. Why? Hadn’t I won the arm wrestling match recently? Is it that actual strength and visible muscles are different?
At my reaction, noona chuckled and added,
“That’s even a short estimate because it’s you. Generally, you should expect at least 3 years or more.”
“Th-that much?”
“Of course. And that’s assuming you work out consistently 5 times a week and strictly follow your diet. Sung-hyun started working out when he was 16, so he’s in his 5th year now. It’s greedy to try to catch up to that in a short time.”
“…Now that you mention it, that makes sense.”
Hearing that, it made sense. I was being unreasonable to try to catch up to someone else’s years of effort in just a few months.
However, Seora noona’s words weren’t over yet.
“Well, don’t be too disappointed. What I said was when considering all the details and when taking a normal workout intensity.”
If working out 5 times a week is normal, what would be considered intense?
I gulped and changed my question.
“Then, what if I work out intensely and lower the standard a bit?”
“Intensely? Hmm, if you really stick to your diet like a knife and work out professionally, about 1 year? If you lower the standard even more from there… for an average person to get a body profile, three months should be enough?”
“That’s a huge reduction!”
As I showed surprise, Seora noona smiled with a strange expression and said,
“Why do you think I casually asked you to compete? You naturally have a lot of muscle mass, so even just cutting body fat will make your body show to some extent. You said you did home workouts for a year at home, right?”
“That’s right. I worked out quite diligently.”
At the time, I didn’t want to go to a crowded gym, so I stuck to home workouts. Push-ups, pull-ups, squats. Thinking about it now, it’s surprising that I kept at it consistently. Even though it was bodyweight training, I weighed over 130kg, so the self-imposed weight was enormous.
“If it weren’t for that, it would have taken much longer. You laid the foundation with bodyweight exercises, which shortened the period. Of course, being naturally gifted is also a big factor.”
“…So my solo workouts paid off.”
I smiled faintly and nodded. The fact that it was a meaningful period felt good.
As I quietly nodded, noona asked cautiously,
“But why a body profile all of a sudden?”
“Oh, the concept profile came up in the club meeting yesterday.”
“Concept profile?”
Seora noona tilted her head.
She hadn’t participated in the last club meeting, so it seemed she hadn’t heard the news yet.
“We’re participating in SeCo in August, right? They said that anyone who wants to can take a concept profile photo like this one.”
“…Are you going to take one too?”
“I haven’t decided yet… but honestly, I’m interested. Seeing Sung-hyun’s, it looked pretty cool.”
“Really? Then… no. If you decide, let me know. Working out is my specialty, after all. And I’m your PT instructor.”
“Of course.”
While I was at it, I showed her another photo. It was the competition photo of my father that I had taken just the other day.
“Noona, then how long do you think it would take to get to this level?”
“Let’s see… Wait a minute, what is this?”
Suddenly, Seora Noona’s eyes widened. For some reason, her expression was extremely surprised and flustered.
“P-please show me that in more detail.”
“Oh, yes. Here…”
Slap! Seora noona snatched the phone from my hand as if to take it. Her eyes, staring intently at the photo, didn’t blink for a single moment.
“Whoa…”
“Why?”
“…”
Seora Noona was so engrossed in looking at the photo that she seemed unable to answer my question, completely lost in thought. Her mouth was half agape, and her eyes were slightly unfocused. What was going on? It was almost a little scary.
“N-noona?”
“Oh, uh-huh!”
Noona, startled back to reality, looked at me. Then, she looked back and forth between the photo and my face, and asked,
“…Who is this person? Your brother? A relative?”
“No, I’m an only child. That picture is of my father.”
“What?!”
Seora Noona’s mouth fell open in shock.
“Y-your father? But he looks so young…”
“That’s because it’s an old photo.”
“Ah…”
“I found out when I went to see him the other day, but he used to work out quite a bit when he was young. He even won an amateur competition.”
“Amateur competition? At this level, he probably would have won even if he entered a well-known competition?”
Seora Noona spoke with a bewildered expression, still unable to tear her eyes away from the photo.
‘My father is amazing.’
While feeling proud, I also had this thought.
Someday, I want to build a body as great as my father’s, or even greater.
My father in the photo looked so cool that it made me think that.
Of course, I’m not saying I’ll enter a competition right away. I’ve secretly decided on the body profile, but a competition is another matter. It would require a certain level of commitment to enter a competition.
I suddenly scratched the back of my neck. I felt a catch at my fingertips. It was the texture of a cover sheet, not my skin.
‘I’ll have to take this off when I go to a competition, won’t I?’
The tattoo cover sheets attached to my neck and collarbone.
Beneath them, hidden, were numerous cigarette burn marks.
This was one of the reasons I had given up on competing. Since I wore the cover sheets so much like a second skin, I hadn’t thought about it at first, but later, it occurred to me that I would have to remove them for a competition.
‘The club members probably have a rough idea, but…’
I had submitted ‘Escape from My Room,’ a dramatization of my past, as a club assignment. I had hoped it wouldn’t be discovered, but they probably all suspected that the original story was my past. Naturally, they would also guess the reason why I wore cover sheets.
However, even if they knew, openly revealing it was another matter. It was a painful wound to display proudly.
But to enter a competition, I would eventually have to show my scars. To noona and the other club members, and to strangers I’d never met.
Was I ready for that?
‘I don’t know.’
Even when I asked myself the question, there was no clear answer. The aversion had significantly decreased compared to before, but… a little hesitation still remained. It would be better if it were a scar from some accident, but these cigarette burn marks were problematic because they made others speculate about my past.
‘For now, let’s just get the massage.’
I lay face down on the mat. Perhaps because of the unnecessary thoughts, a sudden wave of fatigue washed over me. Maybe I should have gone to bed earlier yesterday.
“Cheol-jin, I’m going to get on top of you for a moment?”
“Yes.”
Seora Noona climbed onto my hips to massage me in a comfortable position.
Squish.
A soft sensation was felt where our hips met.
I always thought this when getting a massage, but the feeling of buttock meeting buttock was truly strange. Especially today, with noona wearing leggings.
Soon, the massage began in earnest.
Rub, rub.
The soft sensation felt on my glutes and the refreshing feeling spread along Seora Noona’s touch.
Receiving a massage like this, I felt as if all the worries and anxieties of the world disappeared. It was as if my mind loosened along with my muscles.
Stiff.
But the problem was that something else was getting hard. This libido of mine simply couldn’t be controlled.
‘It feels like I’m committing a sin…’
Seora noona was giving me a massage out of pure kindness, and I felt ashamed doing this. Secretly getting an erection, that is. You, you gotta calm down!
‘…No, wait. Is it not purely out of kindness?’
Suddenly, I remembered the first time I received a massage. Noona’s hand secretly touching my ‘thing.’ Back then, the blood rushed to my head, and I even had vain fantasies.
…Hmm, it’s a relief that noona hasn’t touched my ‘thing’ since then. Honestly, I feel a little regretful, but… if that happened repeatedly, I don’t think I could have endured it.
What if I tried to set the mood first and then got rejected? I might not know, but given my personality, it would have been hard to face noona afterwards.
If possible, I want to see Seora noona for a long time.
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Ahn Seora gulped and massaged Kang Cheol-jin’s body.
People’s preferences are unimaginably diverse.
A person who seems beautiful or handsome to one might appear ugly or unattractive to another.
Of course, there are universal standards of beauty depending on the era, but there are also people who break those molds and have their own firm standards.
Sexual preferences, in particular, are broad, secretive, and unique in their variety.
For example,
While there are relatively common fetishes like ‘feet’ or ‘armpits,’ there are also unconventional desires like feeling sexual attraction to someone’s ‘feces’ or to ‘animals’ that are not human.
The interesting fact is that most people live their entire lives without realizing their own preferences. This is probably because they conform to universal norms as members of society.
Nevertheless, there are times when one becomes aware of an inherent desire.
This was exactly what Ahn Seora was experiencing right now.
Ever since she saw Kang Cheol-jin’s father’s photo a moment ago, she couldn’t control her wildly beating heart.
‘Wh-what is this? Why am I like this?’
Ahn Seora, 23 years old, never had a boyfriend.
Although she had never dated, she had received many confessions from men.
In her early twenties, full of vigor.
She wasn’t unpopular, but the reason she had been single until now was that she had never felt ‘excitement.’
Of course, she was interested in the opposite sex.
But there was no excitement.
No matter how polite or handsome the man.
Even seeing a man with a well-built body and clear six-pack, she felt no excitement.
It got to the point where she even doubted her own sexual identity.
‘Why, why am I getting excited seeing a married man’s photo, you crazy bitch!’
Right now, that excitement had arrived.
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