“So, it’s going to be nineteen ninety-nine a month.”

“Uh huh.”

“But, since it’s your first time applying here, you get one month free.”

“And I don’t have to bring a parent or guardian?”

The man shook his head. “Nope, since it’s under your name then it’s all good.” He picked up a piece of paper and handed it to Ana. “You can also bring a guest, if you want.”

Ana turned to look at her dad. “So?”

“Promise you’ll come here?”

Ana nodded.

“Okay then.” Ana’s dad handed the man his debit card. “Here you go.”

“Alright, I’ll be back in a few minutes.” The man stood up and walked to the register.

Ana smiled to herself and looked at the chart in front of her.

“So, what made you want to get a gym membership again?” Mr. Kim asked.

Ana put down the chart. She shrugged. “Just felt like I need to be in better shape.”

“But you are in good shape.”

“Nope, I need to lose a little more weight and I would also like to gain some more muscle. That’d be great for dance.”

Her dad nodded his head. “Whatever makes you happy.”

Ana’s smile immediately fell and she turned her head to the left, away from her dad’s view.

Nothing was making her happy.

The only reason that she was getting this membership was because she heard that exercise does this thing where it makes you more positive and she didn’t want to keep sulking about the same damn problem.

And plus, Taehyung made a rude comment yesterday, at Jocelyn’s practice, about her being heavy. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but there’s a short five seconds where the guy has to pick up the girl in the air.

Of course, Ana was going to hide her embarrassment by saying “when did you get so weak?”. That did cause a lot of giggles (except from one person), but it also caused Ana to go home that night with doubts in her head about her body.

Fifteen hours, thirty minutes, and twenty-two seconds later, she’s sitting in a gym.

“Okay!” The personal trainer said. “Here’s your card, sir--” He handed Mr. Kim his card back. “And here’s your membership card, miss.” He handed Ana her membership card. It was black with red letters reading ‘Fitness 19’.

“Thank you.” Ana said and then her and her dad stood up.

“I hope to see you soon!” He told them both and shook their hands.

“Thanks, bye.” Ana smiled and then they both walked out of the door.

“So, haven’t seen your friend, Yoongi, lately.” Her dad said in Korean, as they both got in the car and put on their seatbelts.

Ana pursed her lips. “Um… Yeah… He’s been busy lately, so…”

“You should invite him over for dinner one day.” Her dad put the keys into the ignition. “He seems like a good guy.”

“Dad, our dinner consists of frozen boxes of pizza.”

“And hamburgers!”

Ana crossed her arms. “I don’t think he’d be interested.”

“Nonsense! I bet he’d love to come for dinner!”

“Dad, no.”

“Why not?”

“Just, no.” She replied. She grabbed her earphones from her pocket and put them on.

A few hours later, Ana was sweating a load in the gym.

Her dad dropped her off two hours ago.

She had black gym tights on and a pink tank top sort of thing and a black sports bra under. She remembered to bring a sweatshirt because it was getting colder by the hour. And plus, her research said something about going out in the cold after exercising was a no-no.

When she entered the gym, the personal trainer she met earlier that day immediately ran to her side. He gave her a quick tour of the gym, showed her where the bathroom was, where the pool was, all the different equipment they had, and when she saw the studio (for Zumba classes) she almost started crying. It was huge and beautiful and it smelled like it was just built (it was).

The guy, Damien, told her that he was her personal trainer (she didn’t know what he was talking about because her membership didn’t include anything with personal trainers) but she just decided to do whatever he was telling her to do.

First, they both did a quick fifteen minute jog to get everything working. Damien was talking while jogging (Ana doesn’t know how) and telling her about how “jogging before doing all the hardcore stuff gets the heart pumpin’ and the blood flowin’!” and she was still amazed that he was able to speak while jogging. She was a bit embarrassed because she couldn’t even breathe while running.

After that, Damien had her do regular warm-ups. Jumping jacks and high-knees and lunges. Then he moved onto conditioning really quick (too quick for Ana’s liking) and then he had her do push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, and all these ab workouts.

And then came the squats.

Damien was holding her waist right before she was about to do her first squat.

“Um, I don’t think I need to do any squats…” She told him.

“Why’s that?”

“Um, I just don’t really think I’ll need them.”

“Squats help define your thighs too. You should do them.” He moved back to hold her waist.

Ana furrowed her eyebrows. Does he have to be this close?

“Um, Damien, I can do squats on my own.” She told him.

He looked up at her, a little flustered. “Oh, uh, yeah sorry. I was just trying to help.” He smiled awkwardly.

“Okay…” She muttered to herself.

“Oh, wait.” He told her to stop and then grabbed a small weight ball, about four pounds, and handed it to her. “Use this. So you lift it up above your head and then you squat.”

She nodded her head and grabbed the weight balls from him.

She did what he asked a few times. She made sure to take her time and go down as slow as possible so that she could feel the burn, and so that she could do squats at a ninety degree angle.

A few seconds, probably thirty, of doing squats, Damien held her waist again.

Ana stopped and looked at him.

“What are you--”

“You’re not going low enough.”

“There’s a mirror right in front of me, I think I know how low I’m going.” She told him. She dropped the weight balls on the mat.

“Ana, I’m just trying to help you.”

“By holding my waist? I don’t see all the other personal trainers doing tha