Sunday: 29th November: 14:15:04

Sunday

29th November

14:15:04

“MAKIT?”

A text from Takuya, a distraction from the migraine visiting the train journey, as well as part of it.

“I’ve heard of ‘em, I think. You’re seriously gonna collab with them?

“Bummer that none of my guys had any space free. But don’t worry, bro! Each one of em would be overjoyed to have you on for a workout.

“Just… Don’t let the guys you did sign up with clown you around. I’ve heard some things. I’m sure things’ll be fine on your watch tho. Praying for your success, Katsumada!”

For the sake of not succumbing to a sense of foreboding and riding the rail loop back around to Minato, Naoki had put the hesitation he’d heard in the texts out of his mind.

Certainly, that was the case now. He didn’t have time, or energy, or any willpower spare to think about anything but completing that final, tenth squat.

Things were certainly not fine.

Naoki cursed the number ten for being so vast. He rehearsed the future count down to zero at double, triple, centuple speed, only to find himself whiplashed back into position, stuck at four.

And then, finally, three.

Two.

Two…

Naoki cursed the number two for being so vast.

The metal bar stuck in his trapezoids with all the hostility of an extremely hot butter knife through a bar of unsuspecting dairy.
The weight exceeded anything that his brain could make sense of. Only his legs, his back and abdominals, barely maintaining form, seemed to persist.

Naoki was in the business of doing hard things. Several of them at once. But this much was none of his business. It wasn’t supposed to be.

Why? He begged himself.

Why why why why why why why—

He needed an answer, or a chance to drop the double-plated catastrophe coming down on his shoulders like an avalanche that wouldn’t end. But neither came. And still he willingly dipped his hips parallel to his knees, placing his industrial-grade musculoskeleton into increasing jeopardy like a goddamn fool.

“Oh my God…”

Meanwhile, a voice milked the moment with as close to the sound of enthusiasm as it could get away with.

“Oh my God oh my God oh my IRON KATSUMADA’s DOING IT!!”

It was clear from Riku’s limp voice and bare-to-none eye contact that his dancing was something closer to an involuntarily resurfacing habit than it was a true motion he was trying to go through.

“220 squats! That’s just, that’s mad impressive, bro.”

There was a small stir among the MAKIT members. More of the guys entered the frame, watching Naoki make that tenth rep. Ichika inched closer, constraining the shot on Iron Katsumada, and him alone. Courtesy of Riku’s voice, there were members of the gym beyond those who Naoki could notice peering over.
But along the way to trying to sound humbled, the influencer himself had arrived at sounding straight-up bored.

With eyes stinging with sweat and otherwise holding back tears, he was the only one Naoki was watching.

He heaved himself out of the squat under what had come to feel like a pair of ogres sitting on his neck, and treaded, gasping, towards the rack.

“Broooooo!”

Even before Naoki had put the weights down, he felt a hand clapping his back. By the time he’d set the insanity dumbbell back on its metal hook, Riku was hanging off of him, hopping around like a leprechaun.

“Elite! Man is elite! Ichika, did you get that?! Bro, everyone gotta stop and take that shit in!!”

Again, the impulse.

Again, Naoki controlled it.

This time, he rubbed his eyes to notice a few more onlookers than he remembered, though he was relieved to find most of them the casual variety.

He couldn’t help but notice their looks souring, as Riku treaded all over the limelight.

The impulse shifted. Suddenly, Naoki had to stop himself feeling relief too early.
But, at least, he could work with this.

“Riku.”

“Right? Yeah? Y-yeah?”

The influencer shifted throughout the duration of feeling the stare of a man like Iron Katsumada.
After long enough, even being caught up in his own rhythm wasn’t enough to save him.
After the intimidation had passed, he was almost ready to get defensive.

Maybe he’d even try going on the offense. This big, say-nothing, too-good-for-you dude was full of shade-able openings, if he kept it on the down-low. It’d be good for clicks.

“You wanna compete for real?”

A low ‘ohhhh’ circulated the MAKIT team. The sound even caught on as a whisper, in a couple of the surrounding onlookers with a particular enmity for the racket around these racks.

Perhaps real competition would at least occur in silence. Or perhaps they were just invested now, eager to watch Riku brought down a peg. Perhaps eager to say the same for Naoki.

Naoki himself simply focused on using what little of his consciousness that wasn’t flooding to the steamrolled muscles in his legs to keep up the stare that he felt like might have been getting to Riku for just a moment.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The influencer demanded. He’d passed the point of being over Naoki’s stare getting to him, and was maybe starting to inch back into gotten-to territory.

Riku didn’t exactly want some optimised muscle-golem elaborating on lecturing him in how to run a show he’d easily bagged 2 million views with one time, but he didn’t have another comeback that wouldn’t trap him.

“You want me to compete? With you?”

He had to resist gesturing to his 162.7-centimeter build, which had admittedly had a lot of work put into it, and back to Naoki towering over the rest of the entire gym at which all that work had been done.
To hell with being ‘trapped’. Anyone could see this guy was just being a douche.

“With yourself.” Naoki said.

“Huh?”

Riku paused. He was still half built-up into the inflated caricature he needed to be just to stand on this stage. He was still trying to inflate, just so he could match that stare of Iron Katsumada’s.

But slowly, the deltoids de-tensed. The biceps, trying their best to bulge against the circumference of the tracksuit sleeves came back to his sides, and Riku realised he’d gotten it all wrong.

The way Katsumada was standing, the look in his eyes… He was being open. Honest.

“You can do better than 20 KGs, can’t you?” Naoki said.

Even though he looked invincible, Riku saw that on the inside, this domineering man’s heart could still be moved.

Riku saw in Naoki’s eyes a reflection. A hope he’d once had, to start eating clean, to get the body of his dream without having to juice. To reach a million subscribers…

He finally saw it. Iron Katsumada somehow believed it could happen.
But not like this. Iron Katsumada’s eyes were telling him now, this wasn’t the way.

When did I?—

When did I stop believing?

“Boys…” Riku breathed, suddenly inaudible to the camera.

The other MAKIT members blinked, exchanged glances.

“What’s that, bro?” Ichika had to rove in to get an up-close-and-personal view of under the boyish influencer’s face.

“Will you help me out?” He asked, hanging his head low to the mat as he struck on one knee, gathering his courage. “Will you add some weight to that squat bar?”

“How much, man?”

“One—” He steeled himself.

That’s right. If it was the words, the gaze, the presence of Iron Katsumada that would give birth to his new self, he would be Steel Riku.

“One hundo.” He said.

“Dude…”

“Holy shit.”

By now, the MAKIT bros had resumed their original plans for the barbell, unstacking it back to 20 kilograms. But as Riku raised his head, they saw from the shine in his eyes, and most of all the sweat draining down his neck that he was serious.

They got to work adding the hundo, and Riku took a deep breath, squaring up to the bar, stretching it.
Ichika was taking in the surprise development, but the set was unusually quiet. Even the muddy bass of the pop music felt distant. The gym atmosphere had hushed to that of an iron church, and the nearby members were watching Riku prepare to reach upward.

Naoki’s head shook, as he came out of his daze. The blood was starting to return to his brain, but even with it back online the only thing he remembered was wondering if him staring into space was going to look weird on-video.

“Are you sure about this?” He had to ask. “I thought you had a concept you wanted to stick to, for the video.”

Riku laughed. He laughed at himself. “A concept? You’re a good guy, Katsumada. But you know as good as I do, that was a gimmick. Just a gimmick. I was scared to take this for real, what with you joining us. I tried to play around, maybe be the wise guy to your straight man, but it was because I was afraid, afraid to stand on the same stage as a legend. I couldn’t accept comparing myself, just in case I fell up short.”

“A-ah.” Naoki nodded slowly, somewhat in preparation for a punchline. He’d long-missed the timing to make a retort the way the camera was begging for as Ichika circled it around him and Riku, but he held out a faint, helpless measure of faith that the influencer would carry his own joke.

He didn’t. No punchline came. Instead, Riku’s eyes sparkled, his face hardening into an attempt at the features of a man.

“But this time, I’m gonna compete for real.” He squared up to the rack. The plates were on, and fastened. He was ready. He took himself under the bar, and began to squeeze.
“Not against you, Mr. Iron, but against me… Against—”

The words “Steel Riku” couldn’t even leave his mouth, for the weight of 120 kilograms was unforgiving, and perhaps because the universe was kind.

The pressure practically flattened the influencer. His face puffed outwards, flushing redwards, and his form shuddered, his core barely staying braced, his legs barely not buckling under him.
Adding any more embarrassment to the display would have been a cruel cosmic joke.

Instead, there was a spark of manhood in him. After all, he didn’t cry. He didn’t fall over. Riku carried that weight.

“What is going on?”

Naoki overheard the raised-eyebrow commentary of his fellow onlookers, and for a moment he forgot he was part of the scene.

From outside, a kid in tracksuits was slowly turning to mush between the barbell and the floor. There was nothing new there, only that it was a unique kind of naivete in the kid to push himself so far.

“One…”

Not with a bang, but a whimper, Riku’s beginnings were already looking to be near-term conclusive.

“Two…”

Apparently, the crowd forming around the rack had overstepped the hurdle of cognitive dissonance; usually deciding whenever a camera was out in public that whatever operation was on film must be none of their business.

Now, the MAKIT team were coming up behind his decision, chanting each rep with Riku.

There had come to be enough eyes on him to offset the camera. As they came to witness the kid’s decision; to push himself beyond all certainty of his limits, to make this lift, no matter who thought him naive or embarrassing, they began to forget their earlier annoyance at Riku’s hooting, dancing, click-mongering.

Now, he was just like all of them, here to become a better version of himself.

“Five…”

He looked like a tomato in a tracksuit, and the pressure was rising.

He really was about to cry, now.

He certainly didn’t look like he was getting to six reps, let alone ten. He looked like Naoki had just finished feeling, under his own version of barbell hell.

There were more than just Ichika’s smartphone out now, and the surrounding gymgoers were dialed in to watch regardless of which way Riku went.

Perhaps it was for that reason Naoki’s impulse changed again. This time, every nerve in his body demanded that he stayed right where he was. He probably couldn’t even afford to be seen in this environment, let alone recorded by anyone other than a contracted channel. If anything, he had to hide.

“Okay… Okay…”

Naoki watched Riku take a breath. His eyes flickered from the floor, to the rack, and back. The light in them had dimmed, and Naoki knew all too well what was happening behind that look of defeat.

Balancing the barbell like a cross, he took a shuddering step forward the rack. To deposit it. To lift the weight from himself.

He couldn’t bear it any longer. Naoki stepped forward.

“One more!”

The MAKIT team glanced back. Even Ichika got caught unawares, almost stumbling backward into the crowd.

Riku didn’t have time, or space, or ability to reply. His eyes shot up to meet Naoki’s, edged with redness, his mouth puffed over a withheld scream.

But he didn’t put the weight down.

“Come on!” Naoki roared. He looked the kid in the eyes, before stepping into position to spot the influencer; long since abandoned by Riku’s camera-shy comrades.
“You decided this was your time! You the kind of person who’s gonna watch that go by?! Or are you gonna follow through, before someone else takes it from you?!”

Torrentious blood inside Naoki’s ears was the only raging noise that softened the blow of his voice, a thunderclap ricocheting off of the padded walls of the gym and enervating every body and soul present on the cramped ChooTube fitness influencer’s set.

The crowd reeled. Many of them who were looking through a screen let their devices fall to their side, and their gazes fixated. Not on Naoki, the source of an all-booming-against voice of encouragement, but on its recipient.

Riku sucked air between teeth and lips. His form shook, like a frog trying to climb from a well. He was just inches above the muck, glancing down, watching the certainty of his fall creep ever closer even despite the light pouring down above.

Sweat mixed with tears. Rivulets of both seemed to pump from his cheeks to the pace of a wild heartbeat, as his body sank under a weight he had barely begun to dream of reaching before he’d discovered a newer, shinier way to get clicks.

This way was the muck. This was the iron. As Riku’s descent came nearer to the mat, he realised just how dirty, how horrible his dream had been.

“YOU decided you’re gonna MAKIT! THIS is how you’re gonna DO IT!”

Still, Riku couldn’t drop it. He couldn’t let that weight slip, as he controlled his fall. He had arrived at the lowest point of the squat, and still he hadn’t given up.

That voice. It was because of that damn voice ringing down from above, that Riku had to push.

It was because of that goddamn voice, that when his leg muscles fired and screamed, the weight rocketed back to 160 centimeters above mat level.

“SIX!”

“SEVEN!”

“EIGHT!”

“N-nine…!”

No longer was Riku’s voice alone, as he let out the almighty cry running through him like lightning, as if his own throat had been electrified by the pace with which he pumped out reps towards the end.

More and more of the gym chorused with him. And as the influencer reached the point of true failure, where his legs wouldn’t even respond to him, let alone move, they began to clamour.

“One more time!”

So too did the MAKIT bros.

“—One more time!”

Soon, every corner of the gym was shouted out, before the previous echoes could even fade.

“One! More! Time!!”

“H—"

Riku’s voice faltered. Just like him, it had long since failed. He had to rely on something else…

“HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!”

CLANK.

Forever after will it be a mystery to him. Riku’s body executed the same perfect squat that a body was only capable of when it stopped being human. This was the squat Zeus did when he lifted the sky, when Atlas lifted the earth, and for just long enough for those hundred-and-twenty metric kilograms to reach the rack, so that Riku could safely fall back unconscious, it had visited him also.

Naoki caught him, before the gym exploded.

Raucor took over the world within those walls like a tidal wave, a celebration that forgot all boundaries. It was pure sound, pure adrenaline, pure pump. The iron church had become a festival for just a moment, as the MAKIT team rushed in to jostle and leap and roar the ceiling off for their guy.

Ripples shook the crowd in waves. Strangers pumped their fists for Riku, the elderly stood upright, their eyes alive. Men and women bumped knuckles around the MAKIT set, and, just as quick as this divine bolt of inspiration had gathered them, they came to a rest.

Timers began to go off. Watches beeped. And, though they carried the hints of smiles off into their schedules, their own next sets or the next leg of a treadmill marathon, Naoki watched the gathering of gymgoers begin to turn away into their own workouts.

“What’s going on, here?”

A set of footsteps clacked on the entry staircase to the gym, and a cleared throat followed a voice, as a policeman peered into the interior of the fitness center.

The room still quivered with unrest. Few actually noticed, or wanted to notice the scent of an outside gust drifting into the room, as a pair of uniformed men made their way up onto the scene.

The first one to glance over was Naoki. And the first thing they saw, amid the strange behaviour of the residents of the gym, the camera, the unconscious, slowly-rousing body of an influencer on the bench, was him.

It was like the fixings of the gym fell away. Naoki had no cover, because he stood above it. He watched the crowds begin to shuffle aside, back away, as the policemen made a beeline for his position.

“Excuse… Me.” One of them came to a stop in front of the musclebound entrepreneur, glancing upwards.
“We need to ask you some questions.”

Naoki blinked. “Oh. Oh?”

“There’s been numerous noise complaints in and around this place, and we’re required to investigate. So, um… Could you please come quietly?”

The policemen hadn’t exactly heavily investigated their surroundings. They looked almost nervous, glancing between Naoki, and the camera, the MAKIT team.

He supposed he could imagine what the scene they were walking into must’ve looked like. It was down to him to reassure them, and he smiled.

“Sure. I don’t see why I can’t answer a few quest—”

Naoki smiled, until he saw one of them handling a pair of handcuffs at his side.

"—ions..."

“W-w—”

It was a small relief that the MAKIT bros recoiled as they watched the two men take up either side of him.

“Why Mr. Katsumada?! He hasn’t done anything!”
It must have been Batsuki, who acted up in his defence. Anyaro and Tattsun weren’t far behind. Ichika was stunned, but nodding slowly.
Riku was still rolling back and forth softly on the mats, his eyes rolled back into his head.

“Are you saying you want to come instead, son?” The first officer asked. He was older, grizzled-looking, a man who hadn’t seen enough in crazy times, and seen too much at peacetime. “Relax. Get your friend resuscitated, before you worry about anything else.”

“I…” The young bro vacilated.

“Thanks, Batsuki. It’s all good, though.” Naoki replied. His exterior remained steely calm.
If anything, this presented an opportunity. He only hoped that Ichika had the sense not to film any of this, and morbid curiosity had him check over his shoulder.

Aw, damnit…

“C-come on, officers.” He raised his wrists in front of him.
“I’m sure you’re both busy. Let’s respect your time, yes…?”

The two policemen exchanged a glance. “Right…”

They skipped the handcuffs, but stuck close to either side of the man as they took him towards the door.

The crowd had all but dissolved, once the residents caught sight Naoki’s escort. The only trace he left behind this time was the shambles of the MAKIT set, but as Riku curled up off the mat at the back end of a daze, he watched Iron Katsumada go.

Curiosity less morbid this time came over Naoki, and he swear he saw a tear in a tracksuited eye, and a thumb stuck straight and proud towards the ceiling, towards the sky.

See ya, MAKIT.

Naoki wished he was present of mind, and in the first place cool enough, to think something like that. But all he could think about was how much he could feel the damage those 220 squats had done him. He could barely even climb the stairs.

“A-are you good?” One of the officers asked him.

Naoki drew in a sharp sniff. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”