Beginner friendly

The day of our first chess and boxing mutual coaching session finally rolled around, and I was honestly a whirl of emotions. I still hated the idea of fighting, and honestly wasn’t too keen on teaching a newbie how to play chess. But man, I’d be lying if I said some part of me didn’t really wanna see that girl again.

I’ll refrain from saying which part, for the sake of delicacy.

“Nanako! I’m glad you came!” said the gorgeous girl in the boxing gymnasium. She was wearing a white and gold sports bra and shorts that beautifully contrasted her tanned skin, her toned figure accentuated in ways that made me forget to reply for a second.

“Y-yeah… I wasn’t gonna… just… ditch…”

I’m not sure what made me freeze up more: my very sudden awareness of my sexuality, or the knowledge that I 100% would have ditched if it was literally anyone else doing this.

“Great! I’m glad you’re as excited as I am about this!” she beamed an innocent smile at me, and I suddenly felt immense guilt at how different my excitement was from hers.

‘She’s pure and good. I have to keep my corrupting influence at bay.’ I thought.

“I… uh… brought the chess set with me…” I muttered. Damn, last time I talked to this girl I was able to hold a conversation totally fine, what was wrong with me?

“Perfect! I brought you my spare pair of gloves and a new gum shield, she said, sauntering towards me and handing me a small gym bag. “Sorry the gloves are used, new ones are a little pricey, hehe…”

She rubbed the back of her neck nervously, as if embarrassed to give me her used goods.

‘Tell me something’s a hand-me-down from this girl and I will put it on without hesitation,’ I thought. ‘…no, bad, down girl. We’re just here to learn.’

Man, I really needed an outlet.

“Thanks… I really appreciate it,” I said, tentatively taking the bag in the arm not occupied by carrying the checkerboard.

“No problem, we’re in this together, right?” she said, so sweetly it hurt my teeth. “I think we should start with boxing today so we can cool down with chess later, if that’s okay? Since your gum shield isn’t moulded yet it’ll only be technique and fitness today anyway.”

“Ah- yeah, that’s fine,” I stuttered out, pretending I wasn’t just imagining her carrying me over the threshold.

“Alright, before any rigorous physical activity, it’s always best to stretch and warm up so you don’t get injured. Just follow what I do, okay?”

Before even giving me a chance to imagine any rigorous physical activities with her, Touka started her stretching routine, and literally from the moment she began I knew how out of my depth I was. She was so flexible it almost looked like she was made of elastic. While she was lunging so deeply her knee was practically on the floor, I was struggling to stay on my damn feet. Every stretch I attempted, she could do twice as deep effortlessly. I was half-convinced she wasn’t a real carbon-based life form. No flesh and blood human should be able to move like that.

“I think that should do it for stretches,” she said, standing up completely straight like she hadn’t done any work at all. “Let’s move on to getting our heart rates up, okay? Follow me again.”

Once again, the moment she even began, I was left in the dust. She started jogging around the perimeter of the gymnasium, but her casual jog was barely slower than a full sprint for me. I was worn out by the first quarter-lap.

She kept looking over her shoulder and slowing down to let me catch up, but the gap between our speeds was so great she was practically power walking by the end of it.

After that, it was more laps, but flicking our heels up with each step. Then the same but high knees. Then the same but with a sprint on the shorter sides.

By the time we moved over to the punching bags, I felt ready to throw up. I chugged pretty much my entire water bottle in one go before going back to her. The second I got over there, she told me to put the gloves on, and we did ten-second flurries of punches on the bags, with fifteen second rests between each. This lasted a couple of minutes, and by the end of it my every limb was screaming in pain.

I was breathing so heavily there might have been blood detected in my lactic acid stream, god forbid.

“How… do you do this… every… week…” I wheezed out, doubled over and sweating from every pore. My lungs felt like they’d been frozen down to sub-zero and somehow burned over a fire at the same time. No human being could ever choose this feeling every week unless they were a hardcore masochist.

“Hmm? Oh, I don’t. I figured I’d do a new easier warmup for you. A little more beginner friendly than my normal ones,” she replied with a completely innocent smile.

Incredible. In fifteen minutes, she had caused me more physical pain than I had ever felt in my entire life, and there was not an ounce of malice in her expression. And she had the audacity to say it was beginner friendly. Maybe it’s not her own suffering that she enjoyed.

…did she say warmup?

“Alright, now we’re nice and ready, let’s get onto the real training, yeah?”

…This woman is going to kill me, isn’t she?