Kaoru Hoshitani stepped over the threshold, and the heavy echo of the closing door behind him seemed to shut out the whole world.
He stood alone in the center of the Living Room, its ceiling at least two stories high, the view so open yet so empty it was almost frightening.
The cool-toned marble floor gleamed like a mirror, reflecting his small and solitary figure.
Huge floor-to-ceiling windows filtered the sunlight from the Garden outside into a pale, cold curtain of light that spilled onto the minimalist yet expensive modern furniture, bringing not a trace of warmth.
The air was filled with the faint scent of new renovation materials, still lingering, and a kind of coldness that came from the absence of people.
He looked around, but nowhere in sight was the Yellow-haired Woman; only a silence so deep it was unsettling.
Just then, the Mobile Phone gripped in his cold palm suddenly vibrated, letting out a crisp Message Notification Sound that was particularly jarring in the excessive quiet.
His fingers stiffly unlocked the screen, and he saw a message from that Contact he’d long marked but could never block.
The message was straightforward: “Walk straight along the first-floor Corridor, there’s a Glass Room at the end.”
Staring at those words, the last sliver of hope in Kaoru Hoshitani’s heart—“maybe she isn’t here”—flickered and died like a candle in the wind.
He didn’t hesitate, suppressing his racing heart as he forced his leaden legs to move, heading toward the Corridor that stretched into the depths of the villa from the side of the Living Room.
On either side of the Corridor, the walls were painted with cool gray art paint, hung with a few Abstract Paintings he couldn’t understand.
His footsteps on the smooth floor made slight but clear echoes, as if every step knocked at the door of some unknown fate.
At the end of the Corridor appeared a floor-to-ceiling partition wall made mostly of glass, creating an independent space.
He stopped outside, peering through the spotless glass.
When he saw what was inside, he was momentarily stunned—this was not the bedroom or some ambiguous place he’d imagined, but a fully equipped, even professional-level Home Gym.
Inside, all kinds of gym equipment shone with cold metallic luster, neatly arranged—complex, professional devices whose names he didn’t know.
The air seemed even more stagnant than outside, with a faint scent of rubber flooring and metal, the unique smell of an exercise space.
“Come in.” A familiar female voice called from within the gym—soft, but with clear penetration.
Kaoru Hoshitani looked toward the voice, his gaze passing through the glass and landing at the center of the room.
Rika Kawasaki was sitting on a machine called the Seated Hip Abductor.
She wore white sports shorts and a fitted sports tank top.
The shorts hugged the strong lines of her thighs; the tank top outlined her broad shoulders and firm waist.
Her tanned skin gleamed healthily under the gym’s bright lights; a few strands of sweat-dampened yellow hair clung to her smooth forehead and neck.
She had obviously been working out for a while; there was a dark patch of sweat on the chest of her tank top.
Sensing his gaze from outside the glass, she paused, turned her head slightly, and her gray eyes unerringly found Kaoru Hoshitani’s figure.
There was no expression on her face; she simply gestured with her eyes toward the entrance and repeated coolly, “Come in.”
Kaoru Hoshitani took a deep breath, pushed open the heavy glass door, and entered.
A wave of mixed sweat and metallic tang, much stronger than outside, instantly wrapped around him.
He stopped about a meter away from the machine, eyes down, not looking at Rika Kawasaki, standing there stiffly like a sculpture waiting for judgment.
Yet Rika Kawasaki didn’t immediately speak or give him a new order.
She simply turned back to face the machine, adjusting her posture.
Then, surprisingly, she began her movement again—this time, her eyes unflinchingly fixed on him, as if he were just another “object” in the room, no different from the gym equipment.
Kaoru Hoshitani’s attention was forced to focus on what she was doing.
The machine called Seated Hip Abductor wasn’t complicated in structure.
The user sat on a special seat, feet on the pedals, the outer thighs pressing against two padded boards that could rotate outward independently.
By engaging the muscles of the hips and outer thighs, the user pushed the boards outward against preset weights.
Many female gym-goers favored this machine because it effectively trained the gluteus medius and minimus, and with consistent use could shape a fuller, perkier hip line and attractive curves at the waist and hips.
For male aesthetics, a woman with tight, perky hips was undoubtedly a feature with great visual appeal and sexual tension.
Of course, from a physiological perspective, strong gluteal muscles also did indeed improve certain “practical abilities.”
At this moment, Kaoru Hoshitani’s gaze, out of his control, landed on Rika Kawasaki’s legs clad only in sports shorts. Those were two long, tanned legs, graceful and full of power.
With each exertion—exhaling, the muscles of her hips and thighs tightened instantly, bulging with lines of explosive strength, like drawn bowstrings brimming with energy.
Then, the two heavy, well-weighted boards were steadily pushed outward to their maximum range by her pure, primal physical force.
After a brief peak contraction, she slowly inhaled, controlling the weight as her legs came together and the boards returned.
Throughout, the contraction and release of her leg muscles was a pure display of strength—almost savage in its beauty and filled with a fierce aggression.
Even though Kaoru Hoshitani knew nothing of how hard the exercise was or how much strength it took, as a person with normal senses, the information bombarding his eyes—the muscle lines at their limit, the raw force opposing the weights, the rhythmic opening and closing—was directly and powerfully impacting his brain, creating an indescribable, complex feeling of shock, unease, and a kind of primal attraction.
Rika Kawasaki kept repeating the movement, her breathing steady and deep, but her gray eyes never left Kaoru Hoshitani’s face, as precise as a scanner, catching every tiny shift in his expression.
At first, Kaoru Hoshitani only felt confused and uneasy, not understanding why she stared at him like this while exercising.
But gradually, as that movement—full of strength and a certain provocative meaning—played out again and again before his eyes, and as her gaze, undisguised, assessed him with a hint of malicious amusement, he suddenly realized something…
His cheeks instantly burned, a vivid, uncontrollable blush spreading to his ears and neck. He could feel the heat rising beneath his skin.
He abruptly shifted his gaze to the cold Dumbbell Rack beside him, as if there were something there worthy of deep study, though his heart pounded wildly in his chest.
[So… so shameless!] An embarrassed and furious thought exploded in his mind.
He finally understood why Rika Kawasaki chose this particular machine, and why she kept staring at him—she was silently conveying a message with this suggestive movement, a kind of flaunting, a kind of… blatant teasing and provocation!
She was using her strength, using the action itself, to “display” and “dominate” him in her own way!
Seeing the little man’s face flushed red, ashamed and angry yet not daring to lash out, only able to look away in embarrassment, Rika Kawasaki’s lips couldn’t help but curve upward in a smile filled with satisfaction and the pleasure of control.
She stopped her motion, picked up a white towel from the armrest beside her, casually wiped sweat from her forehead and neck, then finally broke the tension in the gym, where until now only the sounds of equipment and breathing had hung: “There’s a bottle of water over there, do you see it?”
She lifted her chin, indicating an unopened Mineral Water Bottle on a nearby Storage Shelf, “Go get it for me.”
Kaoru Hoshitani, like a robot receiving orders, looked where she gestured, and sure enough saw the bottle.
He pressed his lips together, took a few unsteady steps, picked up the cold Mineral Water Bottle.
Tiny beads of water clung to the surface, icy to the touch. He walked back to the machine, reached out, and offered the bottle to Rika Kawasaki.
However, instead of taking the bottle, Rika Kawasaki’s hand shot out like lightning, her fingers clamping with iron strength around Kaoru Hoshitani’s slender wrist!
“Ah—!”
Caught off guard, Kaoru Hoshitani felt a painful grip and a huge pulling force on his wrist, cried out in shock, and instantly lost his balance, pitching forward as if the world spun around him.
The next second, he crashed straight into a hot, sweaty embrace reeking of intense post-workout scent.
The environment seemed to shift in an instant—from the cold metal world of the gym to a suffocating cage built from burning body heat, pungent sweat, and solid muscle.
That scent surged into his nose—a sharp, sour sweat odor produced by strenuous exercise, mixed with an indescribable note of sun-baked leather and faint tobacco unique to Rika Kawasaki, a fiercely personal and invasive smell that took over his every sense, making his lungs twinge with discomfort.
All of this, this sudden, drastic change—there was no question, it was all brought by the Yellow-haired Woman!
After the initial dizziness and shock, Kaoru Hoshitani instinctively began to struggle.
With his free hand, he frantically pushed at Rika Kawasaki’s firm shoulders and chest, trying to break free from this uncomfortable hold.
Yet at this moment, Rika Kawasaki wore only a thin sports tank top and shorts; Kaoru Hoshitani’s palm pressed directly onto her tanned skin, made hot and slick with sweat from exercise, full of resilience and strength.
Beneath his hand was the sharp line of her collarbone, the firm fullness of her chest muscles, and the burning warmth that rose and fell with each breath.
The directness of this skin contact, unbuffered by clothing, and the feeling of vitality and pressure under his palm, made Kaoru Hoshitani shudder as if electrocuted, instantly yanking his hand back as though he’d touched a hot iron.
His face grew even redder, this time not just from shame and anger, but a panic and… a helplessness from the shock of raw body heat.
“Y-you… let me go!” he said, his voice shaking, though his struggle weakened after that “electric shock.”
Rika Kawasaki ignored his protest; instead, she tightened her grip, encircling him even more securely, a solid arm like a steel cable bracing his slender waist.
She lowered her head, her breath hot and salty with sweat washing over his reddened ear, her voice tinged with post-exercise panting and unmistakable teasing: “Keep me company for a workout.”
She spoke as if it was the most normal request in the world.
“Workout then, so what!” Kaoru Hoshitani trembled all over from her absurd request and their over-intimate position, his eyes brimming with humiliated tears as he glared at her, almost grinding his teeth, “Then why… why are you undressing me?!”
At some point, Rika Kawasaki’s free hand had deftly unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt, and was trying to pull the shirt’s hem from his waistband.
“Come on,” Rika Kawasaki said, hands still busy and tone flippant, as if complaining about a trivial thing, “Who wears so many tight clothes for exercise? You can’t move in them at all.”
Her fingers slipped under the hem of his shirt, touching his cool, delicate skin at his waist.
“Let me go! I don’t know how to do any of this!” Kaoru Hoshitani squirmed, trying to evade that wanton hand, panic now clear in his voice.
“You don’t know?” Rika Kawasaki paused in tugging his clothes, her gray eyes narrowing, a gleam of pleasure within.
She leaned in so close their noses almost touched, and enunciated each word in a low, dangerous tone: “If you don’t know, then forget it.”
She paused, then tightened her arms, trapping him in the narrow space between the machine’s seat and her own body, and flashed a hunter’s nearly wicked smile: “Then you’ll just… be my ‘gym equipment.’”
“No… Don’t…”
…