Classroom of the Elite - Seven Years After

The Past Follows You

The next weekend, I finally decided to go to the gym and get a membership. I had some equipment back at my home in my old town, but I had been delaying going to the facility for quite some time now. Even though I certainly was not as active as when I was in the White Room, I still tried to keep up with the physical exercise I needed to maintain my body as it was. That is, it wasn't an easy routine. The only reason why I had originally bought my own equipment was because I knew that I would be drawing suspicious looks from the others who frequented the gym in my town. It was a bit too conspicuous for me. However, now I had no choice but to use a public gym. I decided to suck it up and deal with the consequences as they presented themselves, because realistically there wouldn't be much except a few rumors.

I rented out a locker for a low price and dropped my stuff off in it. There was hardly anyone in the gym at this time of the day because I had decided to arrive as early as I possibly could. It was already bright out, but when I woke up the sun was just breaking the horizon.

I headed out into the room that contained all sorts of endurance training equipment, but I walked over to the treadmill and stepped on. In general I prefer to run in the open air, but for today I'll use what equipment is around. I set my water down in the cupholder that the treadmill provided and looked around at the settings for a moment. Before I had turned it on, another person entered the mostly empty room, but I didn't pay much attention.

"Oh, good morning Akiyama-san. I didn't expect to see you here this morning." I turned over to meet the face who called out to me. I was also surprised to see Mashima here, but thinking about it now it made sense. He was in good shape and always seemed as if he was being active in one way or another.
"Good morning. This is actually my first time here, I had just been holding off on going here because... Well anyways," I paused, hesitating to say anything in a public space. I don't trust anything, I will never know whether someone is listening in. This is the way I live my life now, but it's easy enough to refrain from speaking about confidential topics.

Mashima stepped onto a treadmill two away from my own, probably to give me space since we weren't really that close and it was unlikely that we would hold a conversation. I looked back at the control panel, which had a screen unlike the one I previously owned, and turned it on. I had to start already at a relatively high setting for most people just so that it didn't feel abysmally slow, but I would eventually end up turning it up as I got used to the pace.

Mashima seemed to be surprised even despite knowing my capability, but he turned his head away soon after and ignored my choice.

Since I hadn't done any training in over two months I wouldn't have lost any significant endurance, but I still wanted to ease into things. Apparently my idea of easing into things attracted the stares of others, but staring in a gym would often make any person feel self conscious and would lead to them turning away.

Around fifteen minutes in when I was turning up the setting again, I noticed a student of mine enter the room. It was Nakanishi, who I hadn't expected to be the type to actually go to the gym on her weekends. She eyed me from across the room making brief eye contact with me before I looked away. I just need to ignore everyone around me, but considering that I've been on edge for the entire time I've been teaching here that became a task in itself.

Eventually, thirty minutes had passed on the treadmill and I stepped off having worked up a bit of a sweat. I moved onto a different room that had weights and other weight training machines that had various different uses, but I knew what I needed and went straight to the first open one. I'm really just hoping the few people in here will ignore me completely, since that would be the best outcome. If only Koenji were still here to redirect attention.

Things were going well all things considered with the lack of people early in the morning. However, when Nakanishi also entered the weight room I momentarily caught her glancing at me out of the corner of my eye. This wasn't just a one time occurrence, it was several times. It almost seemed as if she was watching to judge and scale my abilities. I would have to push through regardless.