...
"Oh! Don't tell me, you're checking out the girls?"
At that moment, a sudden coldness came over Kim Suho's face. There was only one person who would play a trick like that on him.
Kim Suho glared at him. Yi Yeonghan shrugged and handed him a drink.
"What's up, class president?"
Theo didn't mind the class president's teasing.
"So, were you?"
"No, I was just..."
Suho tried to speak, but Yeonghan didn't seem to care, turning to Theo instead.
"What do you think? Isn't it surprising that a princess is here?"
Theo discreetly pointed at Rachel with his chin, and Yeonghan immediately understood, nodding.
"I think you're right. It's the first time I've seen a real princess working out in a gym."
Blonde hair that shone brightly and eyes that were like refined sapphires. Her figure had no imperfections and exuded elegance and charm.
Even covered in sweat, she looked like she had stepped out of a painting. The young woman, Rachel, was, after all, from a royal family in England and a descendant of a noble lineage.
"Who do you think she'll marry in the future? Not us, right?"
In the face of Yi Yeonghan's comments, Kim Suho smiled.
"Is that an ironic smile? What, do you think you can marry her?"
He quickly corrected the misunderstanding.
"No, it's not that. I was agreeing with you. I don't think she would ever marry someone like us. There's no way something like that would happen, right, Theo?"
Suho asked Theo, who was looking in Rachel's direction.
"About that... Well, who knows? The future is a tangled web of lines, so you can't say it's not possible."
"Huh?! Don't tell me..."
The class president, who was about to ask him why he thought that, was interrupted by a loud, sudden grunt from someone.
"Huuuk!"
The strange breathing sound came from a man fighting a life-or-death battle with a piece of gym equipment. However, the weight on the equipment was pathetic by any Cube cadet's standards.
"...Is he really having a hard time with that?"
Yi Yeonghan looked on with pity.
It wasn't just Yi Yeonghan. Almost all the cadets laughed as they walked by.
Kim Suho couldn't tell if Kim Hajin was distracted or too focused to notice, but he continued his struggle resolutely.
Theo knew what the president was talking about.
For other people, it was like seeing their version of the initial military academy period; it was impossible to imagine that a person who was now in Cube still lifted weights that a normal human could lift.
"Please, with that weight, I could do the same thing for half a day."
A cadet in glasses commented.
"I'm curious how he was admitted to Cube."
Another one commented from somewhere.
"Even snipers have a minimum physical requirement to meet, and wasn't he a swordsman before? Why don't I remember him?"
The class president completed.
"Oh, look, it's Chae Nayun."
Chae Nayun came out of the gravity chamber just as another cadet was about to speak.
Covered in sweat, staggering slightly, she forced herself to where Theo was.
"Ugh! I never thought that being out of training for so long could be so bad."
Her idle month had taken a heavy toll on her.
"Here."
After she leaned on him, Theo took a bottle from his magic storage without anyone noticing and handed it to her.
"Ahh, what are you guys talking about?"
"About Hajin, but it's nothing that important."
Theo explained to her.
"Well, he's still weird, don't you think? Is he pretending to be weaker?"
"Acting? Why do you say that, Nayun?"
"Suho, do you remember what he did to that Djinn, right? That explosion of light, capable of turning the whole world white, isn't something a cadet who can't lift this tiny weight would do. And besides, we also saw how strong that ideal version of him was."
Suho remembered their fight against the Djinn at the museum.
"Ah, that. Yes, really. But why would he do that?"
Suho agreed with Nayun, but his mind also had doubts.
"..."
Yi Yeonghan looked at them without understanding what they were saying.
Theo on their side chose to remain silent; he could explain or even try to tell them that Hajin wasn't acting, but after thinking for a bit, he thought it was better to stay quiet.
"Hey. Hajin must have his reasons for doing this. You don't need to worry too much."
With Theo's words, Suho and Nayun seemed to agree.
"Ah, whatever. Whether he's hiding something or not, it has nothing to do with me."
Nayun said, drinking the rest of the water.
For this Nayun, who had no kind of conflict with Hajin, knowing whether or not he was hiding something didn't really matter much, and besides, Theo didn't seem to have anything against him either...
"Here, I want to try to go to level 7."
Nayun handed the empty bottle to Theo and turned to go back to training.
"Okay, but don't overdo it. If you see you can't handle it, stop."
"Okay, okay."
After saying she would be fine, she went into the gravity chamber.
"I'm going too, see you around."
The class president went toward the treadmill.
"Eh!... I..."
Suho, who had been left behind, seemed to want to say something.
"Go ahead, I'm going for a walk."
With Theo telling him it was fine for him to go back to training, Suho went back to grabbing his dumbbells.
With no one else talking to him, Theo noticed Hajin waving at him, clearly wanting to talk to him.
...