Luke was out of shape, and he knew it. At the young age of 24, he could already feel himself starting to fall apart, waking up with his back aching or needing to catch his breath after any sort of physical exertion, and after a serious chat with his friends, he decided he should probably get a physical, at the very least. The doctor hadn’t found anything wrong, only that Luke was in terrible physical condition, and if he didn’t do anything about it soon it could spiral into numerous chronic conditions before he made it to 30, which was just the wake-up call he needed to make a few changes in his life.
As he stepped in through the front door of the new gym that had opened up a block away from his apartment, he already felt out of place. Not exactly fat, but with the beginning of a belly, but with the thin arms and legs of someone who spent way too much time in front of a computer screen and not enough time moving. He pushed his glasses up his nose and brushed the hair out of his face, if only to put off needing to go to the front desk and sign up for a membership.
“No, no… You need to do this. Quit wasting your time and just do it,” he quietly urged himself on under his breath. “A million people go to the gym every day. Even huge nerds like you. Just go up to the desk and talk to the… the really good looking dude that looks like his shirt is painted on and fuck, I can’t do this…”
Luke swiftly spun on his heel and marched back toward the exit, only to catch his reflection in the glass. Even beyond his scrawny, unhealthy appearance, he could see right away just how unhappy he looked. Anxious, downcast, and awkward. And if he didn’t do something, anything to turn his life around, that wasn’t going to change.
“...I guess this is as good as anything else,” he muttered, turning right back around and walking hurriedly toward the front desk of the gym.
“Hi, dude! New here?” the young man standing at the desk asked, flashing a bright-white smile in Luke’s direction. Everything about the guy, from his platinum blond hair to his sparkling blue eyes to his unconsciously bouncing pecs just screamed ‘brainless gym bro’, but at least he seemed friendly enough. “So, can I hook you up with a basic membership, bro? If you sign up today, we won’t even charge you until the end of the month!”
“Y-yeah… sounds fine…” Luke said quietly. “I’m-”
“Huh? Sorry, could you speak up?”
“Oh, umm… Yes, please!” Luke repeated, blushing at how meek it came out. But if the guy working the desk even cared, he didn’t show it.
“Sure thing, just sign up all your info here, and you’re all set!” the other man replied, pushing a clipboard toward Luke. The information on the application form all seemed basic enough; name, address, phone number, preferred types of exercise, etc. At least, until he got to the bottom of the form, where there was an unusual space, written in a different font that looked like it had been added on to the form at the last minute.
“Err… What’s this supposed to mean? ‘Species’?” Luke asked curiously, tapping the spot with his pen.
“Oh, that. Yeah, the managers said we were supposed to start letting them in, so we had to add that part later,” the blond guy said with a sigh, his cheeky grin faltering for the first time as he rolled his eyes dismissively. “Kinda sucks, if you ask me, but the boss insisted. So we quick went and added that part. Don’t worry though about it if you don’t want to, anyone can tell you’re human, right?”
“Sorry, I don’t understand… letting who in, exactly?” Luke asked, starting to get a weird vibe from this guy all of a sudden.
“Anthros, duh.”
Luke frowned at the man’s sudden change in attitude. It had been a couple years since anthros had started showing up, seemingly out of nowhere and quickly settling in as if they’d always been there. Humanoid animal people of all sorts and species, they mostly kept to themselves, not answering questions about where they’d come from, perhaps not really even knowing the answer themselves. Even odder was how quickly people adapted to having them around, but they were quite rare to see in everyday life and still got plenty of rude stares from the public. A curiosity at best and a target of fear at worst, but uncommon enough that although Luke had seen a few on TV and online, he’d never actually met one in person. But, considering he was a bit of a introvert that rarely left his apartment, that wasn’t exactly odd.
“Used to be we only let them come in certain times on certain days,” the increasingly obnoxious-seeming young man babbled on as Luke tried to ignore his bigoted rambles. “Need extra time to clean up all the workout machines ‘cause they stink the place up with their musk, plus they get fur everywhere, so-”
“Can we hurry this along, please?” Luke snapped, wanting to just get on with things and not have to listen to this a second longer.
“Huh? Oh, uh, sure thing, dude,” the man behind the desk replied, oblivious to how poorly he was coming off to his customer. He tapped the tablet in his hand and input the information on Luke’s application, then he said, “Welcome to Top Fitness Unlimited! Here at TFU, we’ve got everything you need to get into the best body you can, in record time! If you need an overview of our services, I can-”
“Great, thanks,” Luke replied dismissively, slinging his newly-bought gym over his back and hurrying off to the locker room to get changed for his first workout…