closed starter || julian x east (Ā @eastonfishā )
It was rare to find Julian anywhere other than the gym at 5 am on a Saturday morning. Heād never been an early bird by nature, but the gym was mostly empty the earlier he went, so heād decided two years ago to start dragging himself in as soon as it opened. Since heād started, boxing acted as a sort of therapy for him ā all he had to do was focus on the task at hand instead of his continuously raging thoughts and emotions. It was easy enough to put one fist in front of the other for an hour.
There were a few days when Julian had the gym to himself, but more often than not he found himself in the company of one particularly tall and rather intimidating fellow gym rat. Heād seen the other boy at Jukebox before and hadnāt inherently clicked with him the way he did the other employees. āIām security. Iām not here to make friends with the customers,ā heād said. Julian had taken that as hint enough that the stranger wasnāt interested in talking with him, and heād left it at that.
Still, it was a bit odd that the two boys inhabited the gym on an almost daily basis and hadnāt properly met each other. Ordinarily, Julian would stay quiet and stick to his workout, but heād noticed out of the corner of his eye that the all too familiar stranger was benching a particularly heavy set of weights without a spotter. For a moment, Julian contemplated staying at his place by the speedbag. Heād be perfectly content to hit it to his heartās desire, counting out the repetitions in an absentminded daze. But the thought of the other boy potentially getting hurt was enough to push him away from his spot and toward the weights.
āHey, man,ā Julian greeted softly, offering the other boy a small head nod in lieu of a wave. āNeed a spot? I know donāt look like I could bench much, but Iām usually good for more than youād think.ā