A Daily Life With the Boys Next Door | hts

two

"SHIM AERA!!" Jaehyun yells from the living room, his loud voice shaking the entire house.

"Shhh!" I hiss from my bedroom door, "My grandpa's still asleep!"

I slip my jacket on quickly and rush out to the living room before Jaehyun wakes up the entire neighborhood at 5 in the morning.

I can't believe I got convinced to actually do this.

Jaehyun meant every word he said yesterday because he and Sungho decided that they would train me every single morning until the day of the sports festival.

It was almost an unbelievable sight seeing Jaehyun, Sungho, and Taesan (for some reason) up and about in my living room at the crack of dawn, all wearing tracksuits like they were the ones going to run a marathon.

"What? Why are you here too?" I ask Taesan.

"Thought it'll be fun." He shrugs nonchalantly though I fail to see what about this ordeal seemed 'fun'.

"Come and eat some apples first," my grandma's head peeps out from the kitchen. She's always up before sunrise.

The boys and I filed into the small kitchen area, taking a seat at the round table while my grandma placed the apples that were cut into little shapes that looked like little rabbits.

"What are you guys training for?" She asks as she pours each of us a glass of milk to start the day. All the boys bow thankfully.

"Aera's participating in hurdling."

"Someone forced me to." I give Jaehyun a glare but he just smiles smugly, popping a slice of apple into his mouth in one go.

"That's good. You should be active when you're young." She refills the glass of milk for Taesan when she notices that his cup was already empty.

After eating way too many apples, the boys drag me out of the house quickly before I could fall asleep again.

I almost got touched to find that they actually borrowed barriers just to train me. I emphasize almost because now I know they're serious about this which directly results in my suffering.

"Do you guys even know how to hurdle?" I ask, watching them set up the barriers across the basketball court in the park.

"Taesan googled!" Jaehyun replied as if that suddenly made you a professional at hurdling.

"Let's start before the basketball guys come for the morning," Sungho says and then suddenly pulls out a whistle from the pocket of his tracksuit.

I gave him a look of disbelief.

"What?" He raises his eyebrows, a proud smile on his face.

"Never mind."

After some grueling stretching from 'instructor' Jaehyun, 'hurdling expert' Taesan, and 'top gun' Sungho (they gave themselves these titles, not me), my first day of training finally begins.

—

"Wow, your stamina is terrible!" Taesan shakes his head disappointedly, hands on his hips as he watches me collapse down on the ground after 10 minutes.

"Aera-ya! You have to put in strength in your jumps!" Sungho clicks his tongue, looking at the stopwatch in his hand.

I seriously underestimated how hard this sport was. My lungs and legs felt like they were going to collapse on me any second.

"Come on Aera!" Jaehyun shouts, "Put those good calf muscles to use."

If I wasn't so tired I might've actually gotten up and smacked all of them across the head with a pole.