Chapter 44

Elena was still regretting the nonsense she had just blurted out when his words made her freeze again.

“……Do you think that’s fair?”

Richard folded his arms.

“Pull-ups are a bodyweight exercise. The lighter person has the advantage. If you do the math, you’re actually the one taking advantage of me.”

Elena narrowed her eyes.

“You can’t calculate it like that.”

Richard looked at her unconvinced expression, the amusement in his eyes deepening.

“Why not?” he said leisurely. “Do you even weigh a hundred pounds? I weigh more than twice as much as you do. Every time I do one, I’m pulling up the weight of another person compared to you. How is that not an advantage?”

Elena opened her mouth.

“You’re basically twice my size. Isn’t it normal for you to be pulling more weight?”

Richard nodded.

“Exactly. Which means when you said you could do it, you were just bragging.”

The corner of Elena’s mouth twitched.

“Of course I can! Pick any of my classmates and they could do it too, but—”

Richard gave her a look that seemed to say he understood perfectly.

Elena:

“……”

She realized immediately that this was some clumsy attempt to provoke her.

And yet, she still walked straight into the trap.

“…Fine. Let’s compete. And don’t cry when you lose.”

Richard lowered his eyes to her.

“Of course. You set the rules. Overhand grip, underhand grip, one hand, both hands. Your call.”

Elena thought for a few seconds, trying to come up with some tricky rule.

But that would only make things harder for herself.

“One chin-over-the-bar rep,” she said reluctantly. “Standard overhand pull-ups.”

Richard nodded readily and lifted his chin slightly.

“Ready to start?”

Elena stared at the thick metal bar for two seconds before dragging over a small plyometric box. She stood on it and reached up, just barely touching the bar.

“Wait,” Richard suddenly said. “What are we betting?”

Elena cleared her throat.

“No need, right? You’ve already given me so many things. How could I possibly take something else from you? Even if I win—”

Richard looked at her with an amused, unreadable expression.

Elena:

“……Or if you win, we can just call it a friendly competition. We don’t have to make a whole bet out of it.”

Richard looked at her sly little expression and let out a low laugh.

“But I want to make it interesting. What am I supposed to do about that?”

His gaze made Elena’s back prickle.

“Then… win first, and we’ll talk about it.”

Damn it.

Why was she still talking trash?

Why couldn’t she control this mouth of hers?

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Richard smiled.

“All right.”

The pull-up bar was wide enough for them to grip it side by side without any problem.

They stood less than half a meter apart.

Elena turned her head slightly, feeling the heat radiating from his body, along with the faint scent of body wash and laundry detergent clinging to him.

Richard turned his head toward her as well.

“Ready?”

The warm overhead lights reflected as tiny points in his dark eyes, like two stars submerged deep beneath the surface of dark water.

Elena silently nodded.

The bar felt cold against her palms, and it was thicker than she had expected.

Her hands weren’t particularly large. Once she wrapped them around the bar, her fingertips barely reached the other side. Her grip was roughly shoulder-width apart.

Richard didn’t use the box at all. He simply reached up and gripped the bar.

His hands were much farther apart than hers, roughly seventy or eighty centimeters apart.

His fingers were long and strong, easily wrapping completely around the thick metal bar.

“Three. Two. One.”

Elena’s feet left the box.

She steadied the slight sway in her body before pulling herself upward.

One.

She paused for less than half a second at the top before slowly lowering herself.

Her arms fully extended as she hung from the bar.

One complete, standard pull-up.

A low exhale sounded beside her.

Elena glanced to her left.

Compared with her, his ascent was far more controlled. There was almost no unnecessary movement throughout the entire motion.

His tall, powerful body seemed to be pulled upward by an invisible force, moving from the bottom to the top in one clean, fluid motion.

The veins along his forearms stood out even more under the pressure of his grip, winding from his wrists toward his elbows like coiled serpents.

Elena refocused and continued.

After a few more reps, her breathing began to quicken.

Every pull seemed to consume more energy than the one before it. Her arms were beginning to ache, and friction against the bar sent a hot, stinging pain through her palms.

The man beside her was breathing far more steadily, his exhales low and controlled.

Elena quickly lost her rhythm and started relying on brute force. When her chin cleared the bar, she let out a breath.

When she turned her head, Richard happened to be looking at her too.

He watched her cheeks flush slightly from exertion, the fine beads of sweat forming across her forehead, the way she clenched her lower lip, and the stubborn determination in her eyes that refused to admit defeat.

“You still okay?”

His voice was low, carrying a hint of breathlessness and amusement.

Elena could barely speak.

But she had decided that even if she couldn’t win, she at least had to save face.

So she forced out three words.

“Quit talking—”

Richard let out a quiet laugh and slowly lowered himself.

His laughter lingered beside Elena’s ear for several seconds, like a feather lightly brushing against her eardrum.

The strength nearly left her arms.

She drew in a deep breath and desperately managed another rep.

The aching sensation spread from her upper arms into her shoulders. Her body began to sway uncontrollably, her core fighting desperately to keep her stable, but the movement became wider and wider.

On the way down, her fingers slipped slightly against the bar.

Sweat had made her grip dangerously unstable. She had no choice but to pause for an extra second at the bottom and readjust her grip.

Elena looked up at the man beside her.

Richard was moving slightly slower than when they had started, but the quality of every rep remained flawless—the ascent smooth, the pause at the top controlled, the descent steady.

And from this angle, he was devastating.

She could see the entire sharp line of his jaw and the prominent curve of his Adam’s apple. She could see a small pool of sweat gathering in the hollow of his collarbone, and the two defined contours of his chest rising and falling beneath the low neckline of his tank top.

His abdomen tightened sharply every time he pulled himself upward, the fabric of his tank top stretched taut against his body like a second skin, revealing the clear outline of his six-pack.

As he lowered himself, those muscles slowly relaxed again, like reefs emerging as the tide receded.

A bead of sweat fell from the man’s jaw and landed on the rubber flooring between them.

Elena suddenly snapped back to reality.

She pulled herself up again with everything she had.

Her chin was still about three centimeters below the bar.

So close.

Elena clenched her back teeth, the veins in her neck standing out—

but her body stopped at that height, as though it had slammed into an invisible wall.

No matter how hard she pushed, she couldn’t make those final three centimeters.

Her forearms began to cramp.

One finger after another slipped from the bar.

When her feet landed on the plyometric box, her legs buckled. She staggered and nearly fell off.

Elena quickly grabbed the nearby support post and barely managed to steady herself.

She was breathing heavily.

Her entire arm was trembling, the muscles on the inside of her forearm aching so badly they were almost numb.

And the man beside her—

After she dropped down, he calmly did three more reps.

Every single one was clean and precise, perfect enough to make her want to curse.

Only then did he release the bar and jump down from a height of more than two meters.

He landed with a heavy, steady thud.

He didn’t even stumble. The moment both feet touched the ground, he was already standing firmly upright.

Elena had just stepped down from the box and was leaning against the support post, breathing like crazy.

Richard turned and took a step toward her.

His breathing was heavier than usual, and his chest rose and fell more noticeably.

His tank top was damp with sweat, clinging to his chest and abdomen. The fabric had darkened to a deeper shade of gray, outlining the muscles beneath it.

A few strands of his hair near his temples were damp with sweat, sticking against his skin.

That normally cold, sharply defined face now carried a rare, almost lazy kind of danger.

As he approached, Elena caught the scent of him, intensified by the workout.

A smoky, woody fragrance with an oak base, mixed with body wash, warm dry skin, and something else that made her heartbeat quicken.

Richard stopped directly in front of her.

He leaned down slightly, lowering his head.

His voice was low and husky.

“The loser has to pay up.”