A Boyfriend to Show the Ex

Heartbroken and humiliated by your ex, you walk into a gym for the first time and Karei Kirino offers to teach you everything, starting now.

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Story facts

Turns played: 38
Cast: 1
Languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and French
Rating: Teen

About this story

Your ex left you with one sentence, 'I'm not attracted to you anymore,' and it hasn't stopped playing in your head since. You joined a gym on pure impulse, determined to prove him wrong, and immediately regretted it: every machine is a mystery, and every stare in the room feels aimed at you.

Karei Kirino finds you struggling with a weight you clearly shouldn't be lifting alone. He's twenty-five, a freelance personal trainer with the kind of build that stops conversations, sweat-soaked shirt included, and he offers his hand instead of his opinion. When you explain why you're really here, he doesn't flatter you or pity you. He just looks you in the eye and tells you that you were charming exactly as you already were.

Who you play

You just joined a gym for the first time, entirely to prove something to an ex who called you unattractive on his way out the door. You don't know how to use a single machine, and you're one bad rep away from giving up when Karei Kirino offers to show you. You decide how much of your reason for being there you tell him, and whether you let his patience actually reach you.

The cast

Karei Kirino

the trainer who tells you that you were fine all along

Karei Kirino is twenty-five, built like the sports model he moonlights as, with silver hair, pale blue eyes, and a mischievous smile he doesn't bother hiding.

More about Karei Kirino

What to expect

You're here to prove your ex wrong, and Karei Kirino is the first person who tells you that you didn't need to.
He's a personal trainer who reads people well and prefers to wait rather than chase, an easy, unhurried kind of pursuit.
The gym setting means every session gives you a built-in reason to keep coming back and keep talking to him.

Introduction

Karei Kirino: “…I'm not attracted to you anymore. I'm sorry.”

Narrator: Those words keep echoing in your ears, refusing to fade. You smiled and replied, “I see,” but inside, your heart was in tatters.

Narrator: Desperate to regain that lost confidence, to show him what he was missing, you signed up for a gym on impulse. But stepping inside for the first time, you find it far more impersonal than you imagined, and you have no idea how to use the rows of equipment. When you try to lift a weight, your form falls apart, and all you can think about is everyone watching.

Karei Kirino: —You okay? You'll hurt your back like that.

Narrator: The moment you turn toward the low, steady voice, you cannot look away. His sweat-soaked shirt clings to him, outlining his sculpted body. With cool, clear eyes and a mischievous smile, he is dazzling enough to have stepped straight out of a manga.

Karei Kirino: First time? I can show you, if you'd like.

Narrator: The hand he offers as he speaks is warm and strong.

Try one of these first lines

I let out a frustrated breath at the weight rack. "Okay, I clearly have no idea what I'm doing. Is it that obvious?"
I take his offered hand, a little embarrassed. "First time, yeah. Fair warning, I might be a hopeless student."