Chapter 34 : To me, “working out” is murder

Instead of eating until bursting, eat six meals a day, eating until moderately full, and exercise appropriately.

This was all the prescription Eugene Ah received from the hospital.

Surprisingly, the test results showed that her digestive system was fine, and she had no other illnesses.

She simply wasn’t gaining weight because she wasn’t eating, and she wasn’t gaining muscle because she wasn’t exercising.

The advice to be sure to wear sunscreen and not to spend too much time outdoors because of her sensitive skin would be meaningless to Eugene Ah.

Except for the two hours a day she was forcibly dragged around by So-eun Shin, she didn’t take a single step outside the house.

Around 11:30 AM. The apartment complex’s gym.

So-eun Shin brought Eugene Ah there and made her walk fast on the treadmill for about 20 minutes.

Thanks to maintaining a slightly slower speed than last time, Eugene Ah looked a little tired but didn’t collapse and spread out like last time.

Perhaps the boost in motivation from confirming her bond with the viewers on yesterday’s stream carried over to today, as she even showed a desire for strength training.

“A real man does bench press! This is a man’s workout!”

“You’re a woman.”

So-eun Shin looked at Eugene Ah, who was talking nonsense as usual and sitting on the bench, with a proud look, contrary to her grumbling tone.

When she first picked her up, she had such a precarious aura that So-eun wondered if she might disappear at any moment, if she might die soon.

That she had become so lively in just a few days was probably not possible with just her love alone.

But even so, she was probably the only one who could have approached Eugene Ah so easily and quickly and improved her environment.

For example, if men with a suspicious amount of money had approached Eugene Ah first, nine out of ten, no, ninety-nine out of a hundred, would have had ulterior motives.

If Eugene Ah, who already had a precarious impression, had gotten involved with such men, what terrible consequences would have occurred if she had been subjected to something awful?

Perhaps, at this very moment, she might already be dead and gone.

Thinking about that, So-eun Shin thought it was fortunate that she was the first to reach out to her.

‘I’m glad I picked her up.’

Even if she had been unlucky until now, she wouldn’t let it continue that way.

So-eun Shin made that resolution and watched Ruffian try to lift the empty barbell on the bench…..

“Help me! Ugh!”

It would have been a disaster if she had just watched.

She was expecting her not to be able to lift it and was waiting to catch it, but if she had been spacing out, she would have seen that small, frail body get crushed by the 20kg bar from the collarbone down, maybe even breaking something.

“Why are you trying to lift something you can’t? You’ll get hurt.”

So-eun Shin knew from the beginning that Eugene Ah wouldn’t be able to lift the empty bar.

The one thing she had been careless about was that she thought she would try to lift it and give up if she couldn’t.

But she had gritted her teeth and used all her strength, causing the bar to move slightly and come off the rack.

Since those thin arms couldn’t support the weight, the bar was about to fall right onto Ruffian’s neck and collarbone.

If So-eun Shin hadn’t caught it immediately, she would have been crushed.

Since the bench has a height, the bar would have tilted and fallen to the floor, so she wouldn’t have suffocated, but getting hit in the neck or collarbone by the bar could still be fatal for a light and frail body like Eugene Ah’s.

“It’s an empty bar. I didn’t know it would be this heavy.”

“This is 20kg, you know. Dummy.”

Compared to how she emphasized that it was heavy, So-eun Shin easily lifted the bar and put it back in place.

Unlike other women her age who are mainly interested in yoga or Pilates, she was a fitness enthusiast who could do a variety of strength training exercises.

This kind of weight was a piece of cake for her.

“Hey, in my prime, I could lift 60kg easily.”

“Do you think that makes sense?”

Eugene Ah grumbled as if she was being wronged. So-eun Shin was dumbfounded.

How could Eugene Ah, who weighs 41kg and has arms and legs that look as weak and powerless as straw, lift 1.5 times her body weight?

So-eun Shin dismissed Eugene Ah’s grumbling of “It’s true………….” as meaningless nonsense.

“If you need to work out your chest, let’s start with this.”

So-eun Shin handed two 1kg women’s dumbbells to Eugene Ah, whose arms were limp like a zombie’s.

“Ehh, these look like toys.”

Eugene Ah frowned for a moment when she received the dumbbells, which were an annoyingly bright mint color.

“……They’re heavier than I thought.”

“Yeah, I thought 0.5kg would be better.”

So-eun Shin took back the mint-colored dumbbells from Eugene Ah and gave her the pink ones that were half the weight.

“The color is kind of annoying. It feels like they’re looking down on me.”

“The color of the dumbbells has nothing to do with the workout.”

So-eun Shin held a 5kg dumbbell in each hand, lay down on a flat bench, and demonstrated the exercise.

She lifted her waist slightly, engaged her core muscles to support her body, and stretched her arms straight out in front of her, then opened them outwards.

The movement of bringing the arms back together from the outward position is one repetition of a dumbbell fly.

Her stable posture and ability to accurately engage the correct muscles showed So-eun Shin’s expertise.

“Okay, let’s try 12 of these.”

“12? Aren’t you underestimating me? How can this be a workout?”

Said Eugene Ah, who started shaking like a leaf from the 7th repetition, even with the 0.5kg dumbbells.

It wasn’t easy for her, who had completely avoided exercise, to repeat the same motion with proper form, and the 0.5kg weight, which she had greatly underestimated, was a much bigger burden than she had thought.

“Come on, only five left! You can do it!”

“Ugh!”

With So-eun Shin’s encouragement and the pride of not wanting to fail at this, Eugene Ah somehow managed to complete the remaining repetitions.

“Haa!”

The sound she made was somewhere between a moan, a shout of effort, and a scream.

It was a good thing there was no one else around. Really.

“I, I did it!”

“Then rest for 1 minute and do another set.”

It’s rare to do only one set of an exercise in the gym.

It’s much more efficient to repeat several sets with breaks in between.

“J-just one more set, right?”

So-eun Shin had planned to make her do 3 sets from the beginning, but if she told the truth that there were many left, she would lose motivation.

So-eun Shin told a white lie to encourage Eugene Ah.

“Yeah, yeah.”

After the second set, which took much longer than the first,

“You’re doing so well. Then you can do one more set, right?”

“What, you said it was the end earlier.”

Eugene Ah looked wronged.

“It’s because you’re doing so much better than I expected. So let’s do just one more set, okay?”

“You tricked me! No!”

Even as she said that, Eugene Ah was embarrassed that she was being pushed around by a mere 0.5kg dumbbell, so she tried one more set, but she couldn’t lift her arms anymore from the 5th repetition.

“Ugh!”

“Then let’s do just three more. Just three more.”

“Three more?”

The human body is quite cunning.

Even if your conscious mind doesn’t think so, your body can make a different judgment from your mind and put on the brakes.

But what if you’re told to do three when you think seven is impossible? Surprisingly, your arms might move again.

“Uuu, uugh!”

After Eugene Ah did three more, So-eun Shin said again.

“Two, just two more!”

“No, really, I can’t do itttttt?”

The real workout is when you think you can’t do it anymore.

Doing one more in this state, doing two more in this state, is overwhelmingly more effective than repeating many repetitions when you’re feeling fine.

It’s just a dumbbell fly with a 0.5kg dumbbell, but for someone with the muscle strength of a child like Eugene Ah, it’s meaningful enough.

“Okay, you did well!”

So-eun Shin patted Eugene Ah, wiping the sweat from her body with a towel.

But Eugene Ah looked more like she was feeling a strange sense of misery and shame rather than a sense of accomplishment.

“Don’t be too embarrassed. Most women your size are like this.”

“Ugh, uuuugh!”

Despite So-eun Shin’s comfort, Eugene Ah was so embarrassed that she turned bright red and couldn’t even make eye contact, groaning.

“It’ll get better if you keep at it, you know?”

As they were having a pleasant time together, although it seemed like only So-eun Shin was enjoying it, a huge, overwhelmingly muscular man approached them.

“It’s you again, Jin-ah.”

It was Health Boy, a man you should recognize by now.

How could a strange man approaching two women be welcomed?

So-eun Shin scanned him with sharp eyes.

His body was so well-sculpted that one might suspect he was a professional.

Whether he was a professional bodybuilder or not, he had definitely surpassed the realm of an ordinary person who works out as a hobby.

And his fairly familiar face had a handsome appearance that couldn’t be called anything less than popular, even if you were trying to be modest.

“Ah, are you perhaps Kasil?”

Even so, So-eun Shin showed the appearance of ‘Ruffian’s protector’ rather than a fan who was a ‘devoted viewer of Health Boy’.

“Do you need something from my unnie?”

“You know that I did a joint broadcast with Ruffian, right? I wanted to talk to her about work related to that. To get to the point, Jin-ah, are you interested in starting ThatTube?”

“Ugh, ThatTube?”

Eugene Ah, who had been lying on the bench like a zombie with her arms limp from exhaustion, barely managed to sit up using her core strength.

In the meantime, So-eun Shin didn’t miss the way Health Boy’s gaze brushed over Eugene Ah’s chest as she sat up.

‘Fail.’

Health Boy didn’t know it, but that was the moment he got stamped as a failed boyfriend candidate.