## Chapter 37 – Free Time (5)
A silence hangs between Sunbae and me for a moment,
and the gym owner studies the unusual atmosphere between us.
I can’t think of anything to say in this situation,
so I just keep fiddling with the jump rope in my hands.
No matter what I say, to that guy I’ll just be a son of a bitch,
but at the same time, I can’t just stand here with honey on my lips and say nothing, in this crazy atmosphere.
“…You work out here?”
“Huh?”
“I asked if you work out here.”
“Ah, yes. That’s how it is.”
I’m a little surprised at how calmly Sunbae speaks.
“…Good for you, I’m Hong Suho.”
“Ah, okay.”
Sunbae suddenly sticks his hand out in front of me,
I put the jump rope I was holding on the floor, wipe the sweat from my hand on my clothes, and then take his hand for a handshake.
“…Then I’ll go look for Noona.”
“Uh, yeah, do that.”
Even as he leaves the gym again, he grabs the handle of the door,
and as I watch him looking at me until he opens the door, I feel sorry for him.
“Were you acquainted with my son?
He’s acting strange, he’s usually very shy.
He even said hello first.”
I feel even more sorry for him after seeing the gym owner’s reaction.
This is the first time I’ve seen him this close and even though it was a short conversation that barely qualifies as a conversation,
I can vaguely tell what kind of person he is.
He really seemed to like Chaeyoon.
That’s probably why he didn’t even tell his family,
and he hid his pain so well that he didn’t even show it,
but if I put myself in his shoes and think about some son of a bitch who he thinks stole his lover appearing in front of him…
Ugh, I don’t even want to think about it.
That’s why I feel bad for him.
Sunbae is still unable to forget Chaeyoon, even though he’s completely misidentified the target he should be resenting.
“Is he always that rude at school too?”
“I don’t know, this is the first time I’ve talked to him.”
I cut off the gym owner, who was happy to see me as an acquaintance of his son and was joking around with me,
then I readjust the jump rope and start jumping again.
“What, so you could do more.”
They say that when you exercise, distracting thoughts disappear,
but I don’t know about that at all.
It’s not hard, and I keep having all sorts of thoughts.
I wonder if I did it for about an hour,
the morning sun that was rising was already hanging high in the sky,
but still I don’t sweat and I don’t even get winded.
I don’t know how many I did.
Once the number of digits went over 3, it started to get annoying to count, so I stopped counting.
“…What should I do now?”
I turn my head and look around, but the gym owner isn’t there, where did he go?
Maybe he’s helping other people, so I raise my heels to get a better view and look around inside the gym, but I can’t see the gym owner.
“…”
This is déjà vu, when I first came into this gym earlier,
I’m feeling that same helpless feeling of not knowing what to do all over again, and I’m feeling like a lost 20-year-old.
Someone pushed me hard from behind.
I was pushed with such sudden and overwhelming force that I couldn’t even try to regain my balance,
and I fell to the floor.
At first, I was just flustered.
Still flustered, I lifted my head to see the face of the person who pushed me.
Maybe it’s because I slammed my face hard on the floor,
but my vision is blurry and I can’t see clearly,
I mistook her for a man because of her short, black hair, but then I heard a thin female voice
and realized she was a woman.
“…Is it you?”
“Excuse me?”
The blurry focus is starting to return little by little.
This woman’s face is becoming clearer.
At first, I mistook her for a man because of her hairstyle, but
her voice and long, beautiful eyelashes made it clear that she was a woman.
She’s wearing a gym uniform on top and shorts on the bottom,
and her skin is lightly tanned, a testament to how much sunlight she’s been exposed to.
She was slightly taller than Seohee, who is tall for a woman.
That woman pushed me over, and then
immediately did something shocking.
“I asked if it’s you. Are you mute?”
She kicked me in the face.
She continues to spew harsh words in a cold tone and expression,
and lightly kicks my face, tap, tap.
“…What are you doing?”
I was furious at the woman who was touching my face like I was a piece of trash,
but I suppressed it as much as possible, and then, in the calmest voice I could muster,
I asked her, but she rudely ignored my question and went back to saying what she wanted to say.
“Are you Im Chanwoo?”
“Wait, Noona! What are you doing?”
“Let go, you idiot. If you’re scared, then don’t just keep it bottled up like that.”
Suho Sunbae, sweating from his forehead, runs into the gym and grabs the woman’s arm.
But the woman shakes off his hand and instead hurls abuse at Sunbae.
I know why this woman knows my name,
just from looking at the current situation.
“Hey, you, let’s spar.”
“Um, just a second, Sua-ya, I think this person just started today…?”
The small commotion created a loud noise, and people started to gather one by one,
and one of them called the woman’s name and tried to calm her down, but it was no use.
“So what if he just started today?
Does that mean someone like that can’t spar?”
“Noona, please stop, if Dad finds out…!”
“Don’t whine. Seriously, that’s why you get your girl stolen by a guy like this.”
“…What?”
There’s a not-so-good atmosphere flowing between the siblings.
After glaring at Sunbae for a moment, the person named Sua sighs once,
shakes off the hand that’s holding her, looks down at me, and says.
“Mister, can I get a headgear and a glove here?”
“Huh? Just one each?”
“Just give him the headgear,
and give me the gloves.
You said he just started today, right?
It’s okay to start with a handicap, right?”
The woman, who doesn’t even make eye contact with a man in the crowd that’s watching us, receives a headgear from that man,
and then immediately throws it to me.
“Put it on, or you’re dead.”
As she says that, she puts on gloves on her hands,
and goes into the crude ring in the middle of the gym first.
“…”
I lift my head and look at Sunbae.
Sunbae doesn’t even notice my gaze and has his head down,
clenching his fists so tightly that blood is coming out of his hands.
I can’t see his expression because he’s looking down, but
from the looks of it, it doesn’t seem like he directly ratted me out to his Noona or anything like that.
“What are you doing, not coming up?”
Unable to stand the moment I was looking at Sunbae, the woman immediately hurls abuse at me, and I look at her.
If this will relieve even a little of the knot in that man’s heart,
and make his lingering feelings disappear.
I want him to stop paying attention to Chaeyoon.
Chaeyoon already doesn’t have even a little bit of feeling left for Suho Sunbae,
and the current her is probably not the girlfriend that Sunbae knew.
Nothing good will come of you getting involved.
That girl is someone you can’t handle anymore.
So I hope you’ll feel better with this and stop paying attention to us.
I put on the headgear that I’m wearing for the first time in my life and went up into the ring.
In the open space, just her and me,
standing alone, I can see her body in more detail.
She has the most professionally trained body of anyone I’ve ever seen.
And the pride that comes from that effort.
That’s probably what made this woman so arrogant.
But, no matter how much effort she’s put in so far, I can break that nose of hers in an instant,
and if I could, I would do it.
But I won’t.
I can just take a few hits and then leave.
I should go back and scold Chaeyoon a bit, and then look for a new gym.
Having resolved not to attack,
I took a clumsy stance.
The referee, having confirmed that I was ready, rang the bell,
and the clear ringing sound that you often hear on the UFC channel on TV echoed throughout the gym.
In an instant, the woman who had come right in front of my eyes punched me in the right cheek.
“…”
My head is spinning and my jaw is throbbing,
but I don’t feel anything else.
Ah, shit. How many times have I fainted this year…?
“Are you awake?”
“…Where am I…?”
“The hospital.”
Chaeyoon, blocking the lamp that’s shining brightly enough to burn my eyes, is looking down at me
beneath the white ceiling.
And next to her, the gym owner, who had been fidgeting anxiously, bowed his head to me with a sincere apology as soon as he confirmed that I had opened my eyes,
before I could even say anything.
“I’m so sorry, my daughter did this while I was away on business for a moment… I’m so sorry!”
“…It’s okay.”
My head is fuzzy.
I was planning to just take a few hits and then come down,
but instead I was carried out.
Still lying down, I turn my head to look at Chaeyoon and say in a small voice that the gym owner can’t hear.
“You did this on purpose, didn’t you.”
“I did do it on purpose, but
I didn’t think it would be Sua Unni.”
Looking at her face, which is wearing an awkward smile and sweating, it seems like she really didn’t know about that girl.
That reminds me, why didn’t the crisis detection detect an attack that was strong enough to make me faint?
I wonder if there’s something wrong with my head,
so I hit my temples like I was hitting a broken TV, but it just makes my head hurt even more.
I’ll have to look into this later.
My head hurts because I’ve been lying down for too long.
The moment I try to support my upper body with my hands to get up,
I feel a sense of discomfort in my hand.
“…?”
There’s something in my hand.
I open my hand to check, and it’s a small scrap of paper.
On that paper, there’s a small, scribbled message that says this.
‘You pathetic bastard.’
I’ve only read one short word scribbled like a doodle, but.
The humiliating sensation I felt on my cheek,
the way she looked at me like I was trash, seems to be reflected in the ink on the paper.
“…”
“I’m so sorry, I’ll refund your membership fee and of course pay for your medical expenses.
If you need anything else, call…”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m going to keep coming here. Gym owner.”
I wanted to see it no matter what, by whatever means.
Hong Sua, I want to see that prideful piece of shit crumble and become dirty.
“…Oppa has thrown away a lot of his personality too…♡”
