Chapter 230: Taking a Breather (1)
Kang Ra-Eun had been extremely competitive even before her return to the past. Although her gender had changed, that tendency of hers had not. Her desire not to lose to anyone was still blazing within her heart. She had absolutely no intention of backing down, even if her opponent was her former mentor.
‘When had Team Leader Park Eun-Soo left the security team again?’
Eun-Soo would transfer out of Kim Han-Gyo’s security team in approximately eight years from now. In other words, he would stick right beside Han-Gyo to protect him until then.
‘It also means I would be forced to confront Team Leader Park for the next eight years.’
Ra-Eun had no ill feelings toward Eun-Soo; he had been a great mentor, sunbae, and work superior, and she had learned many things from him. If she wanted to avoid their relationship from becoming hostile, there was only one way, which was to refrain from attacking Han-Gyo until Eun-Soo transferred elsewhere. In short, she would need to put an eight-year stop to her revenge plan. There was no way that Ra-Eun would do such a thing.
‘I have to eliminate Kim Han-Gyo with my own hands, even if it makes Park Eun-Soo my enemy!’
Revenge had been the only driving force in her life that had kept her going despite having become a woman. Without revenge, Ra-Eun was nothing more than a corpse. After some thought, she came to a conclusion.
‘I just have to get stronger than Team Leader Park, don’t I?’
Hence, she had come to Jung Hun-Seong’s gym. Hun-Seong couldn’t hide his astonishment at Ra-Eun’s unannounced visit.
“Ra-Eun, why are you...”
He was curious about why she had come here. He wondered if she had come to ask him to model for her products again, but he did not expect the answer that Ra-Eun gave.
“I want to get stronger.”
Hun-Seong did not quite understand what she meant.
“What do you mean by that exactly?” he asked.
Ra-Eun had a clear reason for her pursuit of strength, which was for the sake of her revenge.
‘But I can’t give Hun-Seong the details.’
Not only was it absurd, but it was also a hassle to explain. Hence, Ra-Eun made a roundabout excuse.
“Do you remember back when I had been attacked by a stalker?”
“Oh, yes. Of course.”
The Kang Ra-Eun stalker incident had stirred the entire entertainment industry at the time. Although it had been resolved smoothly, the incident had also frightened her fans. As a member of Ra-Eun’s fan club, there was no way that Hun-Seong wouldn’t know of the incident.
“That’s why I’d like to learn some self-defense techniques from you,” Ra-Eun remarked.
But of course, the self-defense that she was thinking of was far more different than what Hun-Seong was likely thinking of. Having no idea of this, Hun-Seong gladly accepted her request.
“I see. I understand. It’d be my pleasure to help you!”
Hun-Seong’s junior whispered from next to him, “Sunbae. Didn’t you say that you were going to focus on your own training for the time being?”
Hun-Seong then looked angrily at him and mentioned, “This is obviously more important than my training.”
Hun-Seong considered spending time with Ra-Eun to have as much value as going for an Olympic medal.
***
Hun-Seong asked Ra-Eun when she would like to begin the self-defense training, to which she answered, “Right now.”
“I’m sorry? But I heard you’ve been busy with shoots...”
“I’m not as busy now. I can make time about twice per week.”
“Oh, I see.”
“And of course, I’m not asking you to teach me for free. I’ll make sure to pay you for the lessons, so please teach me as best as you can.”
“No, you don’t have to.”
Hun-Seong had not even thought to be paid; rather, he felt like he should be paying to spend time with Ra-Eun like this. However, Ra-Eun did not tolerate being trained by Hun-Seong for free. She demanded that he give her his account number, to which he had no choice but to do so. Ra-Eun smiled in satisfaction after managing to get it.
“I’ll deposit the money once I get home. I have to change, so... Where is the changing room?” she asked.
“Over there. But did you bring a judogi?”
“No.”
“Just a second. There should be some for women...”
Hun-Seong asked his juniors, but he unfortunately could not find one that was Ra-Eun’s size. He had no choice but to just choose one size larger.
“This will be a bit too big for you. Are you fine with that?”
“Yes, it’s okay. I’ll go get changed.”
Ra-Eun headed to the female changing room and came back out moments later in the judogi. She had learned judo back in her bodyguarding days, so she did not have to learn how to wear it. However, whether she had worn it properly or not was not the problem for Hun-Seong and the other judo athletes.
“How do I look?” Ra-Eun asked.
Hun-Seong nodded furiously in a daze. “You look absolutely amazing!”
Ra-Eun looked good in anything. Hun-Seong came to realize that she herself perfected any clothes that she wore.
“Let me tie my hair back,” Ra-Eun said.
Her long hair would interfere with the training, so she needed to tie it before they began. She took off the hair band that had been on her wrist and lightly bit it with her lips. The athletes, especially the male ones, kept glancing at Ra-Eun as she pulled her hair back to tie into a ponytail. Hun-Seong purposefully coughed loudly to warn his juniors to stop staring. Ra-Eun felt lighter after tying her hair back while getting showered with male gazes.
She stretched to warm up and requested to Hun-Seong, “We can start now.”
“Understood, In that case...”
Hun-Seong had been planning on teaching her very slowly because he had assumed that Ra-Eun was a complete judo novice, but that was not what Ra-Eun wanted.
“You can skip the basics and go straight to the techniques. Don’t hold back on me and go as hard as you usually would.”
Ra-Eun wanted spartan education. Hun-Seong nodded slightly and complied.
“In that case, let’s start with breakfalls (ukemi)[1].”
It was extremely crucial to know how to lessen as much of the shock as possible from an opponent’s attack, and it could be considered one of the most basic techniques in judo. Ra-Eun obviously also knew about it, but she decided to keep quiet and let herself be taught since she expected a national representative’s breakfall technique to be in a league of its own.
“There are three main forms of breakfalls. There is the forward breakfall (mae ukemi), side breakfall (yoko ukemi), and backward breakfall (ushiro ukemi). They are to protect the back of your head, internal organs, knees, elbows and other areas, so it is crucial that you learn them even if it’s difficult,” Hun-Seong explained.
“Okay.”
“Alright, then...”
The most effective way to learn breakfalls was to be shown how to do it, and then to experience them for oneself. It was not difficult to be shown the technique since Hun-Seong could just ask one of his juniors for help.
“Huup!”
Hun-Seong yelled and shoulder threw his junior that was one weight class above him. Ra-Eun was impressed by how flawless his motion had been.
‘That’s a national representative for you.’
It couldn’t be described as anything but beautiful.
“Whichever one of the three breakfall forms you use depends on how you fall. Now, then...” Hun-Seong stepped up in front of Ra-Eun and asked, “Why don’t you experience it for yourself?”
Hun-Seong’s eyes had totally changed to one befitting a national representative. He grabbed Ra-Eun’s arm like he had done to his large junior. Her arm was extremely slender to the point that he was worried that he’ll accidentally break it.
‘But Ra-Eun asked me to take it seriously.’
He would be reproached by Ra-Eun if he went easy on her, so he decided to give it his all.
“Hup!”
With a shout from Hun-Seong, Ra-Eun flew up in the air. It felt as if the world was spinning with her as the focal point.
Slam—!
Ra-Eun managed to use the ukemi form to safely break her fall on the mat, but she was honestly a bit... no, very surprised by the speed at which she had fallen. Unlike Ra-Eun, Hun-Seong was frantic with regret about throwing her so hard.
“Are you okay, Ra-Eun?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine...”
As she pulled her upper body up, Hun-Seong gasped and quickly turned his gaze elsewhere.
“R-Ra-Eun! Your gi...”
Since she was wearing a judogi one size too large for her, it had loosened with just one large movement to the point that her collarbone and upper chest area was fully visible. Hun-Seong quickly tried to take off his top to give her something to cover herself with, but she expressed that it was okay as she pointed at her chest area, as if to say that it was okay for him to look.
“I knew this would happen, so I wore a sports bra.”
Ra-Eun wore a sports bra for any sort of physical activity, not just judo. Her bust was so big that she needed to wear one to restrict the uncomfortable shaking of her breasts.
Ra-Eun fixed her judogi and said, “They won’t show no matter what, so you can rest easy. Let’s go again.”
“I... understand.”
Ra-Eun said he could rest easy, but she was the only one that was able to. Hun-Seong continued like she wanted, but he couldn’t focus at all because her judogi kept loosening. He had never looked at any of his female juniors this way, but he couldn’t resist the temptation because his opponent was Ra-Eun.
The shoulder throw aside, he pondered over what to do for the other techniques because it was impossible to avoid skinship in judo.
Having realized his worries, Ra-Eun expressed, “I won’t complain even if you touch, so I only ask that you teach me properly.”
The phrase would be very misunderstood without context.
1. Ukemi is the art of responding to an opponent’s attack in a safe way. 👈
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