Chapter 333 (1/2)

“The ones that will take the test will arrive soon. You should look around until then.”

It seemed that the scheduled time had been delayed. They were led outside by Choongho. Right at that moment, a man rushed across the top of the mattress right in front of them. He drew a sharp arc in the air and curled himself up before landing on the ground with his right arm and shoulder and then rolled on the ground. Maru looked at the spot that the man jumped off from. It looked like he fell four meters at least.

Behind that, he saw a man standing on top of parallel bars. He was doing a handstand with his hands grabbing the bars, and he slowly rotated downwards as though climbing stairs. Whether he was a gymnastics athlete or a stuntman, he was amazing either way.

“So, I heard you did some sports,” Choongho asked Bangjoo.

Bangjoo replied that he did Taekwondo when he was young and that he was learning Judo right now.

“Then care to show me some falling techniques?”

When Choongho pointed at an empty mattress, Bangjoo stood on top of it.

“Show me the ones you’ve learned. Sideways, front, back, front-spin, and whatever else you have.”

“Yes!”

While Bangjoo fired himself up and continued to fall onto the mattress, Maru walked away and approached the people that were in a group fight. They were acting out a group fight with rods that were made out of styrofoam. They signalled each other before violently rushing at each other and started to kick, punch and swing their rods at one another. When the one that looked like the main character punched, the opponent collapsed at just the right time. The gap between the fist and the skin of the opponent was so narrow that it looked like they were hitting each other for real. People started falling over one by one, and when the last one was thrown over the shoulder, all of the people on the ground stood up and dusted off their clothes.

Even though the motions looked very dynamic and violent, their breathing hadn’t wavered at all. They gathered around in a circle to exchange opinions before doing the same thing again. This time, the actions looked much sharper.

“They’re good, aren’t they?”

Choongho had approached him. Maru could only nod his head. At this level, it was sufficient to be called art.

“The reason I set this place up is for people like them. You need to be taught to learn techniques. But there aren’t that many schools that teach such a subject so I had no choice but to make one myself.”

“You set up this place yourself?”

“I had a few colleagues. But now, they all became chubby men and quit, leaving only me left. Hey! Over there! Watch out for your hand.”

Choongho shouted at the man in front. The man replied ‘yes’ before moving again.

“They all look like they did some form of sports.”

“Some did sports, and some were just back alley thugs. Whatever the case may be, they are more adept at using their body than their brains. Of course, some of them came because they wanted to learn action acting for real. This is the only place in the country that teaches action rather than martial arts.”

Choongho’s eyes were filled with pride as he watched the people practice with his arms crossed.

“Is that a wire over there?”

“Yeah. Wanna try?”

At that moment, a man wearing wires floated into the air and spun twice before coming down.

“I don’t think I can do that.”

Choongho no longer said anything as though he was joking. Listening to the shouts from all around, Maru’s body heated up slightly. He liked sports, so he wanted to run around to his heart’s content whenever he came to places like this. After all, there was nothing more refreshing than moving around violently and getting some sweat out.

“I like how he doesn’t get scared.”

Choongho spoke as he looked at Bangjoo standing in front of the sandbag. Maru turned his gaze that way. Bangjoo kept looking at the sandbag. Then, he tapped the sandbag with his left hand twice before punching out with his right. After a low thud, Bangjoo turned around while shaking his right hand. From his expression, it looked like it was quite painful.

“It’s not foam inside.”

“This is not a diet gym after all. Hey, is your wrist okay? Oh, and also, you’ll rip your skin if you don’t punch with gloves on. Be careful.”

Bangjoo, who was standing afar, replied yes. He put on the gloves placed next to him and started hitting the sandbag again. His posture as he punched the sandbag that swayed around was a little awkward.

“Hey, you said you did boxing, right?”

“I just followed my father to the gym from time to time.”

“So you know what it’s like at least. Why don’t you try hitting it? There’s nothing to do until everyone else arrives, right?”

Choongho pushed his back. As he said, there was nothing to do until then so it wasn’t a bad idea to spend some time hitting the sandbag.

“Seonbae-nim. This is really hard. It looked really easy in the movies too.”

Bangjoo hit the sandbag once again. He stood with his feet parallel like when doing a straight punch and punched out with his right hand. The red sandbag made a low thudding noise again as it was pushed back. Maru caught the sandbag that returned from the rebound.

“You’re going to try?”

“It’s been quite a long time, so I don’t know if I can do it.”

He glanced back at Choongho, who was watching him, before getting the gloves from Bangjoo. As the gloves were made for practice purposes, it wasn’t that good. It had minimum protection against the skin. It was no different from taping.

He clenched his fist slightly. The sensation of leather being stretched out was quite good. Before his father became busy with work at the factory, he used to go with him to the boxing gym and practice together. Thinking about it now, his father’s punches were so smooth because he once aimed to be a pro boxer.

Maru did some boxing steps and did a full turn around the sandbag. The rhythm that he had forgotten about until now became vivid again. He thought that he should visit the boxing gym again when he had some time.

Although he hadn’t warmed up properly, he still did a light jab. Ever since his boxing teacher told him not to punch sandbags without warming up, he always warmed up before punching sandbags.

Thud, a quiet sensation spread out through his knuckles. It felt quite good. Then, the left hand. The left hand moved forward slowly until it reached the sandbag. He moved just a little further back. He did light jabs with his left hand and made a full turn around the sandbag once again. As he hadn’t hit sandbags in a long time, he wasn’t familiar with the distance.