"SO," Matthew announced, standing on a wobble board like it was his TED Talk stage, towel around his neck like a dramatic boa, "quick question for research purposes, Sir-Arslan-SexySilence: Peaches or bananas?"
Silence.
The kind that makes people look up from their phones and protein shakes.
Even the rowing machine let out a mechanical groan like it couldn't emotionally process what was about to happen.
Arslan, mid-welding a broken squat rack with no protective gear (just pure eyebrow tension and testosterone fumes), slowly turned his head. That stare? It was the kind of stare that made hard-boiled eggs crack themselves out of respect.
Matthew, undeterred, smiled like a raccoon who found an open fridge. "I mean, metaphorically. Like… you know. 🍑 or 🍌. Bottom or top. Yin or yang. Receiver or deliverer. Catcher or pitcher. Hole or pole. You get me."
The entire gym paused, collectively sucking in their breath like a vacuum-packed orgy.
Javed dropped his dumbbell on his toe and didn't even feel it. Gina whispered, "He actually did it. He asked the Forbidden Fruit Question."
Old Mr. Bilal removed his hearing aid just to preserve his peace.
Arslan didn't speak. He didn't blink. He just… set down the molten metal and slowly walked over like a panther who just read Nietzsche and bench-pressed a bear.
Matthew, realizing too late that he may have awoken the ancient one, started backpedaling verbally:
"I mean, I'm just a curious spirit, y'know? I ask the important stuff. Like—does your silence mean you're emotionally constipated or just busy calculating the economic collapse of modern intimacy—?"
Arslan reached the reception desk.
Looked Matthew up and down like he was a mildly interesting bug on the gym mirror.
Then leaned in just enough for Matty to short-circuit and whispered his seventh recorded word in two months:
> "…kiwi."
Matthew froze.
The gym froze.
Even the radio playing reggaeton remixes froze.
And then Matty… melted.
Full-body limp. Gay shutdown. System rebooted. Error 404: Dignity not found.
Because what did it mean? Kiwi?? Was that both? Was it a third, cursed category? Was he into fuzzy chaos?? Did Arslan just sexually identify as a tropical enigma?
Matthew clung to the edge of the desk, babbling like a man hit by revelation and arousal at the same time. "Oh my god. He's a switch. But fruity. Like... tangy versatile daddy."
The gym collectively updated their bets.
New theories arose.
Charts were drawn.
Fanfic was penned live.
And Arslan?
Went back to welding. Like nothing happened.
Like he hadn't just shattered Matthew's soul with one word and zero emotion.
That day, "Kiwi" became canon.
And Matthew would never eat fruit salad the same way again.
Matty was already on thin ice—well, metaphorically, because the air conditioning hadn't worked since 2021 and technically the gym ran on one industrial fan, Arslan's sweat, and sheer intimidation.
But today?
Today was different.
Arslan, in what Matty referred to as "The Greco-Roman Muscle Daddy Arc", had walked in like a silent tsunami. White tank top, grey sweatpants that had seen more action than a Twitter breakup thread, and that blank stare like he was simultaneously in a tax haven and a war flashback. He looked around the gym and apparently decided the dumbbell rack was 2 inches to the left of his internal feng shui.
So, naturally, Arslan just lifted the entire rack—weights and all—with one hand.
With the other, he was texting something, presumably instructing Malik Riyaz to buy another African telecom company or move a national border slightly to the right.
No grunts. No flexing.
Just casual heavy-lifting and texting like he was multitasking between world domination and Sunday chores.
Matty, who had just learned how to deadlift a resistance band without screaming, saw this and dropped his protein shake. It hit the floor, splashed on his shin, and he whispered, "Daddy moved Earth." Like a gay Galileo watching tectonic plates shift.
The other members?
Chaos.
One girl screamed and dropped a barbell on her ex's foot, shouting, "I knew it! He's built different!"
Someone proposed to their PT out of sheer panic.
One guy passed out from dehydration and horniness.
The betting board near the front desk—which once tracked Arslan's potential sexuality—was now scribbled over with "Is he even real?" and "Does gravity obey him or is it the other way around?"
Matty was doing that thing again. That thing where he circled Arslan like a Sims character with no mission, just blinking rapidly, lips moving, brain buffering.
"Did you, um—did you just—move that with one arm?"
No reply.
"Was it because the light hits it better here or like… Feng Shui? Is it Kiwi protocol? Are we entering a new fruit phase??"
Still nothing.
Arslan looked at the rack, adjusted it half an inch, and walked away.
Just… walked away.
And Matthew, with his neurodivergent flair for dramatic suffering, collapsed theatrically behind the reception desk, clutching his heart like he'd just seen Jesus Christ, Beyoncé, and a flash of thigh at the same time.
"He lifted the sins of my ancestors," he gasped, "and repositioned them in alignment with Mercury's orbit."
Behind him, one of the uncles from the boxing room nodded solemnly. "That's not gym strength. That's post-divorce landlord energy."
Somewhere in the ceiling, a light flickered.
The protein bar fridge purred.
The dumbbell rack rested in its corrected place, as if ordained.
And Matty, lying flat on the floor, whispered, "I'm gonna ask him if he's into astrology next. I don't care if I die."
The sign read:
"FLEX & SUBMIT: Power City's First Annual Friday Fight Night"
...in Comic Sans. Because Matthew, in a caffeine-fueled haze and zero graphic design training (but a Pinterest board titled "Dommy Mommy Fonts"), thought Comic Sans was ironically hot.
The prize?
100:1 odds against Arslan.
The catch?
Arslan hadn't agreed.
But also, Arslan hadn't disagreed.
He merely raised an eyebrow when Matthew printed the flyers, and that eyebrow was as close to royal decree as Kent had ever seen.
By Friday, Power City Gym looked less like a fitness center and more like a bisexual fight club sponsored by Monster Energy and daddy issues.
Someone brought fog machines. Someone else brought folding chairs—not for sitting. For combat.
TikTok lives were already calling it "The Muscle Gauntlet".
And Matty?
Matty was in a striped black-and-white crop top, booty shorts, knee-high socks, and a whistle he abused like a sadist in heat.
He was the referee, the announcer, and somehow also the promoter, ring girl, and patron saint of bad decisions.
He took the mic:
"Laaaadies, gentle-thems, and everyone hot enough to get banned on Grindr! Welcome to the one event guaranteed to break bones, spirits, and maybe gender norms!"
Crowd: SCREAMING.
The betting table was overflowing.
One dude offered his car as a wager.
A MILF from yoga class put down custody of her kids.
Even Malik Riyaz wired in "a modest wager" from Islamabad just to keep appearances.
First up:
Josh "Protein Farts" Thompson—a 24-year-old ex-rugby bro who claimed he could "bench press his demons."
He lasted 42 seconds.
Arslan didn't even wrestle. He just caught Josh mid-lunge, set him down gently like a sleeping toddler, and whispered something in Urdu that turned the air pregnant with submission.
Second round:
Kareem "Crypto Daddy" Awan—shirtless, oiled up, yelling about decentralized power.
He got folded like a tax document.
Third:
"Meatball" Mikey—built like a Roomba with biceps, entered to Eye of the Tiger, screamed "NO MAN DOMINATES ME!"
Left whispering "yes, sir" into the bench press.
By the fifth round, Matty was sitting on the ropes fanning himself, legs crossed like a cabaret judge, purring into the mic:
"Still undefeated. Still silent. Still so daddy it's tax fraud."
Arslan stood dead center, shirtless now, because someone's water bottle "accidentally" spilled on him earlier. His body shimmered like a CGI budget and his expression never changed, not even when Matty shouted,
"Final round, y'all! The only man brave enough left… is me."
Crowd: gasps, screams, somebody faints.
Matty slides into the ring, flips his whistle into his mouth, and stares up at the man who lifted a dumbbell rack like it was a briefcase.
He whispers:
"Do your worst. Or best. Dealer's choice."
Arslan doesn't move.
Doesn't speak.
He just steps forward, close enough that Matty can smell gym chalk, sandalwood, and the crushing weight of divine judgment.
The crowd leans in.
Phones up.
One guy whispers, "If he breathes on him wrong, Matthew's going to orgasm and die."
But Arslan…
Bends.
Picks up Matty bridal style like he weighed less than a sin.
Walks him out of the ring.
Places him on the reception desk.
And walks away.
Matty, blinking, stunned, flushed like a Victoria's Secret candle sale, whispered,
"...I won. Or lost. Or came. It's unclear."
But the crowd?
The crowd erupted.
And the betting board caught fire.
And Kent would never be the same.
[07/07, 11:43 pm] Arslan Toto: Matty, now crowned the "Reception Twink of Terror", was living his peak delusional era. The front desk of Power City had become a performance art piece. He was multitasking like a cracked-out drag queen at an improv audition: answering phones in a Russian-French-Kiwi accent hybrid, flirting with straight men out of their protein bars, and printing membership contracts that smelled faintly of his cologne and desperation.
"Power City Fitness, where the dumbbells are heavier than your daddy issues—Matty speaking, how may I redirect your emotional baggage?"
He said this, every time.
Once to an elderly war vet.
Still got a tip.
Meanwhile, Arslan sat exactly twelve feet behind the desk in his private office—which was just a repurposed storage room with a suspiciously upgraded MacBook, three encrypted phones, and a corkboard that looked like it belonged to a Bond villain.
The corkboard had pushpins in patterns that, if decrypted, would have revealed he was simultaneously:
Negotiating a silent coup in a Balkan state.
Buying back half of Dubai's shoreline under 34 shell companies.
And checking whether the gym's water cooler was due for maintenance.
Arslan hadn't spoken since the wrestling event. Not a word. Just that stare, that temple-grinding silence that somehow expressed full monologues.
But in his head?
"Pros: Matty is keeping the customers. Cons: Matty is going to get me sanctioned by NATO."
At 3:16 PM, Matty walked in with a smoothie and an attitude.
"Daddy I mean Sir I mean Boss—I ordered a kale-mango-lust blend but they gave me something that tastes like corporate betrayal and spinach. Also, there's a man outside claiming he's a reporter. He has a hat and a notepad. Very 1950s noir. Can I flirt with him?"
Arslan blinked once.
Matty took that as "yes" and "slay" and "open the floodgates, babygirl."
He skipped out of the office humming Beyoncé and chaos.
Behind the glass, Arslan opened his laptop.
The screen flashed:
"—Malik Riyaz reports progress in destabilizing energy monopolies in Northern Europe. Shall we begin phase three?"
He hovered over the "EXECUTE" button while watching Matty outside doing finger guns and winking at someone who looked like an off-brand Anderson Cooper.
Arslan, stone-faced, cracked one knuckle.
Execute.
Kent's geopolitical balance? Shifting.
The gym's cardio machines? Still broken.
Matty's lip gloss? Poppin'.
Everything was as it should be.
[07/07, 11:50 pm] Arslan Toto: But fate, much like Matty's wardrobe, didn't care about consent.
The gym was packed. Packed like a Pride parade in a protein factory. Packed like Matty's jeans after Arslan bent down once to pick up a kettlebell. Every elliptical was abandoned. Treadmills were dry. No one had lifted a dumbbell since noon. Because the debate had begun.
On one side: Team Arslan Is a Repressed Bisexual Warlord.
On the other: Team Arslan Is a Cold-Blooded Straight Daddy With a Hidden Praise Kink.
And then the rogue third faction: Arslan Is a Retired Assassin Programmed for Eye Contact Domination Only.
The gym whiteboard, previously reserved for schedules and protein shake specials, now had diagrams, infographics, and one completely unnecessary fanfiction quote from an anonymous Matty burner account:
"He smelled like danger, deadlift chalk, and a coup in the making."
Arslan stood in the corner of the gym, arms crossed, wearing the same black tank top he always wore (which was definitely made of Kevlar and judgment), not engaging.
Matty, seated on the reception desk like a panel judge at a gay TED Talk, was moderating the chaos.
"Alright! So DeShawn from spin class says you once touched his lower back during a deadlift spot and your hand lingered. Objection, hearsay, but noted. And Kyle from accounting says your Spotify accidentally connected to the gym speakers and it played Lana Del Rey's Gods & Monsters and THAT is, in fact, queer-coded."
Arslan didn't blink.
Someone offered him a mic. He didn't speak. He bent the mic stand in half with one hand and set it down gently like a swaddled infant.
The crowd roared.
Matty, fanning himself with a gym brochure, whispered to no one in particular, "That's not even foreplay. That's straight-up architectural seduction."
The debate was peaking. People were sweating, but not from cardio—from gay tension and raw unspoken daddy energy. One guy tried to get a leg day in and got booed off the squat rack for interrupting the panel.
Then someone, high on pre-workout and emotional trauma, shouted:
"IF ARSLAN'S STRAIGHT THEN WHY DOES HE HAVE A PEACH EMOJI NEXT TO MATTHEW'S NAME IN THE STAFF WHATSAPP?"
The gym went feral.
A woman fainted.
Two grown men hugged for the first time.
Someone proposed to their ex.
Matty, stunned, blinked five times then gasped:
"…I knew it. Daddy knows fruit."
Arslan? Still silent.
He turned, picked up a 200kg barbell with one hand, and walked back into his office like God decided to rebrand as a CrossFit monk.
The debate would rage for days.
Memberships spiked.
Someone was selling Arslan-scented candles out of the parking lot.
Matty was already designing next week's event:
"Top or Cop? Interrogate Arslan LIVE."
And behind the office door, Arslan finally cracked a smile.
Just one.
Enough to shift the tectonic plates under Kent.