Strategic Mating Partner Chapter 48

The machines provided in the personal training room were mostly old-fashioned or manual. Though there were only a few, he had already figured out Sejin’s routine, so he could grasp what he was doing now and what he would do next. He just had to avoid those and use the equipment alongside him. As Taehyun took off the jersey he was wearing and tossed it onto a bench, then sat down in front of the lat pulldown machine and rolled up his sleeves, his well-defined arm muscles were revealed, though they seemed to have shrunk a little from not being able to use his strength for a while. In terms of actual strength, Sejin, who focused on training his arm muscles, would likely be stronger, but because Taehyun was naturally big-boned, his physique looked more impressive.

“……”

One, two. As Taehyun let out controlled breaths, got into position, and pulled the handle, Sejin, while trying not to pay attention, kept stealing glances at Taehyun, his gaze continuously drawn to him. Unlike his own, Taehyun’s thick ribcage and full chest were confined within a tight-fitting t-shirt. Even though he himself often wore a basic black t-shirt, the fit was different from that one. It seemed his chest was the cause.

“……”

Sejin once again tore his gaze away from Taehyun’s chest. The chest is a sensitive part of the body. While staring at another person’s body is rude in itself, it was especially so for a place like the chest. It was better than between opposite sexes since they were both male, but it was still a body part that was not good to stare at intently. As Sejin tried his best not to pay attention and focused on his count, hooh, the sound of Taehyun taking a deep breath and exhaling followed.

It wasn’t an unusually loud noise, and in facilities used by many, most people would make incomparably more of a racket, but since it was just the two of them in this small personal training room, it kept getting on Sejin’s nerves. Sejin once again unconsciously stole a look in Taehyun’s direction and ended up glancing at his firm chest. It was definitely big. It seemed his own shoulders were wider, but the thickness of their chests was certainly different. Sejin recalled something a Japanese male athlete of his age, whom he had met at the fencing club where he trained before coming to Korea, had said.

‘Chest size is something you’re born with. The potential is just different from the start. For us Asians, it’s impossible in the first place.’

He had obsessed over his chest muscles so much and whined about it that Sejin had thought, “if you’re going to say that crap, I wish you’d just keep it to yourself.” But looking at Taehyun, the thought that it wasn’t necessarily impossible just because one was Asian suddenly popped into his head. He wasn’t particularly envious of that body. He was now eighteen by Korean age, so he would continue to grow for another two or three years. Sejin was a late bloomer. He had even been worried when he was only in the low 150s in height until he was fourteen. Then he surpassed 160 at fifteen and had been growing 10cm a year since then. Since they said his growth plates were still open, if all went well, couldn’t he grow to be 190? It was clear that by the time he reached Taehyun’s age, he would be taller than him.

So, to reiterate, he wasn’t envious of Taehyun’s body. But he couldn’t understand why his gaze kept going over there.

‘It’s because he’s unusual, that’s why….’

Besides, when it’s just the two of them in this cramped space, it’s only natural to be conscious of him, of course. Sejin nodded and lifted the barbell again. Just as he safely finished his set and put the equipment down, Taehyun, who had been watching him, asked out of the blue, cluelessly.

“How did you get started with fencing?”

The question was so random and sudden that Sejin ended up coughing repeatedly. Taehyun immediately apologized.

“Ah, sorry…. Was me talking to you that surprising?”

Then, he quickly grabbed a water bottle from the table and handed it to Sejin. Sejin almost snatched the bottle Taehyun offered, and gulped down the water to wet his throat. As the water quenched his parched throat while he gasped for air, his breathing finally became comfortable. Hoo. Sejin caught his breath and then replied curtly.

“Why are you curious about that?”

At that, Taehyun spoke with his usual affable smile.

“Just… your life environment must be completely different from mine, so I’m curious. What reason made you start sports, what was the opportunity that led you to become an athlete…. If you’re curious about my story, I can tell you anytime, but I figured you wouldn’t be.”

As Taehyun neatly explained his reason, Sejin felt strangely displeased. Who does he think he is, arbitrarily deciding my reaction and talking like that? A rebellious feeling shot up. So, he gave Taehyun a reply he wouldn’t have expected.

“If you tell me first, I’ll tell you.”

“Oh.”

As if he hadn’t expected this kind of reaction, Taehyun let out a short sound of admiration and raised his eyebrows. Even though he was making a playful expression, it was still a handsome face. Taehyun pulled the corners of his mouth into a smile that clearly treated Sejin like a child, then opened his mouth.

“When I was young, I was pretty good at fighting. So every time the neighborhood kids picked a fight, I beat them up, and the director of the neighborhood Taekwondo dojang told me to stop beating up kids and do sports instead, so he took me in.”

“……?”

At Taehyun’s refreshing answer, Sejin doubted his own ears and narrowed his eyes, glaring at Taehyun. However, Taehyun just shrugged his shoulders with a still carefree face.

“It’s true. It was a huge relief that there was no SNS, YouTu○ or anything like that back then. If there had been, there would have been an uproar about whether I should be allowed on the national team. Thanks to that, I could be the secret top dog of the neighborhood. Ah. Do you even know what a top dog is?”

Whatever it was, it was a story Sejin had no interest in. What surprised Sejin was the dissonance of him—the very model of a proper person who, based on his impression now, everyone around him would adore—saying that he used to go around getting into fights in his childhood. As Sejin continued to look at Taehyun with suspicious eyes, Taehyun gave a mischievous smile.

“Anyway, that’s the story of how a regional sports for all instructor safely guided a delinquent student onto the right path, something like that. So, what about you? It’s your turn now, right?”

As he said that, he confidently crossed his arms and demanded Sejin’s answer, and his firm forearms and the chest trapped between his crossed arms were accentuated by the tight wrinkles of his shirt. Sejin, who had been thinking of nothing, was suddenly startled by how loud Taehyun’s chest was becoming, and stuttered without realizing it.

“Th-there wasn’t really any… special reason. There was… a child care facility nearby….”

There really was not much of a story to tell. Sejin had lived alone with his mother since he was young. A support person who helped with child care would occasionally stop by the house, but most of the time, it was just the two of them. When Sejin was very young, his mother worked at home sitting in front of a computer, but from the time Sejin was able to go to a daycare center, she left him there and went out to work. After the daycare center’s operating hours were over, she would come to pick Sejin up, blatantly showing that she couldn’t work properly because of him.

His mother was always busy. It was only natural that she had to be tenacious to raise a child while single-handedly dealing with Europe’s insane cost of living. However, his mother had ambitions beyond that. Not lashing out at Sejin with scathing words like, “my career is ruined because of you,” was the best maternal love she could show. Sejin’s heart felt heavy whenever he returned home, held by his mother’s hand. His mother, who would sit in front of the computer and argue with a colleague over the phone for hours, was the entirety of Sejin’s world.

When Sejin grew a little older, his mother searched for a place that could look after Sejin even after the daycare center’s operating hours ended. As a result, she found out that a small fencing club near their house operated basic education for preschool children until what was, for Europeans, a rather late hour. And so, at a young age, Taehyun was led by his mother’s hand and enrolled in the fencing club. He was five years old at the time.

It was two years after that when he began to show his prominence as an athlete. The coach of the local club, who taught fencing as a hobby to a small number of neighborhood residents, recommended that Sejin’s talent was incomparably superior to that of his peers, and that it would be no exaggeration to call it a crime not to nurture such talent, so Sejin should be sent to a larger, major club for elite training. However, that was a direction Sejin’s mother did not want.

‘We don’t have the money for that. With rent and living expenses, we can barely afford to eat out two or three times a month. We can’t afford to support an athletic career.’

At that, the coach personally went out to look for a sponsor of Korean descent in the area who wanted to support a Korean athlete. And a few weeks later, he connected them with an elderly Korean man who lived in a high-end villa, not so far from Sejin’s house but in a completely different atmosphere just across a single road.