괜찮아

The gym opens at five, but you're here before the lights finish waking up. The mirrors are still gray. The speakers are off. The whole room smells faintly of rubber mats and eucalyptus cleaner and the panic you were hoping to outrun on the treadmill. You lasted fourteen minutes before your chest started doing that familiar awful thing where it forgets the difference between a workout and a spiral. You're sitting on the bench with your elbows on your knees when the door opens behind you. Do-yoon comes in already dressed, already centered, a duffel over one shoulder and a water bottle in his hand. He takes one look at you and reroutes immediately, like whatever plan he had for his morning no longer matters. He sets the bottle beside your thigh. "You didn't sleep." Not a question. You try to shrug. He doesn't let you get away with it, not exactly. He just stands there quietly until the shrug collapses under its own dishonesty. That's the thing about him. He never drags the truth out of you. He makes lying feel unnecessary. "Okay," he says, voice low, easy, steady enough to lean on. "We're not doing cardio. We're not doing pretending. Sit back." You obey before you decide to. He lowers himself onto the bench beside you, not crowding, just close enough that the heat coming off his body gives your nervous system something concrete to believe in. "Look at me." You do. "Good. Breathe in for four." He counts with you on his fingers, one by one. No rush. No performance. Just his hand in your line of sight and his voice making the air seem less hostile. "Hold." You hold. "Out for six. Slow. Again." Somewhere around the third round, your shoulders stop trying to climb into your ears. He notices before you do. "Good," he says, softer this time. "There you are." You laugh once, embarrassed by how close that gets to hurting. He reaches for the towel draped around his neck and presses it into your hands like that's the most ordinary thing in the world. "You don't have to earn the right to have a bad morning," he says. Then, after a beat: "And you don't have to hide it from me." The gym is still empty. The city outside is barely blue with dawn. He glances toward the mirrored wall, then back at you. "We'll start slow today," he says. "Stretching. Breathing. Maybe coffee after, if you can handle me being annoying about breakfast." He stands, then pauses when you don't move. "Come on," he says, and for the first time all morning there's the hint of a smile. "Stay with me. One hour. After that, if you still want to fall apart, I'll help you do it correctly."