3 minutes and 48 seconds.
As the song that had been rushing toward its climax ended and the lights on stage went out, Siwoo gasped for breath.
It was a feeling he hadn’t experienced in a very long time, and this kind of enthusiastic response was a first. The cheers from the fans participating in the pre-recording were still echoing.
“You did well.”
Having relaxed his entire body and leaning against Evan’s arm, Siwoo nodded slightly at his whispered words as Evan pulled him into an embrace. There was no time to be lost in emotion after finishing just one song.
After hurriedly changing clothes, they were able to finish recording the two songs they had prepared following ‘Lucifer’ without incident.
As Siwoo, fluttering his sweat-soaked clothes, headed toward the waiting room, his body swayed, and in that moment Yechan, who had been following behind him, quickly grabbed his arm.
“Siwoo hyung. I’d think this was your debut stage. You didn’t even shake this much during our actual debut, so why were you so nervous today?”
“That’s because you’re fearless when you don’t know anything. It’s scariest and most frightening when you know just enough to be dangerous.”
The trembling before going on stage hadn’t been real trembling. Having come down from the stage, Siwoo, whose body swayed from the lingering sense of exhilaration, eventually stopped walking.
This was the reason he couldn’t leave the entertainment industry after going round and round for all that time.
He had never once stood at the top, and he had never shared much with fans.
The long, long hours of practice sometimes remained as pain, but the emotion felt after a 3-4 minute stage couldn’t be explained in words.
When he heard the cheers and his own name intermittently during the performance, when he felt his heart ready to burst from the intense choreography, it felt like he had lived for this moment. Confined in a small space, he had repeated the same movements thousands of times. To produce a sound he was satisfied with, he had practiced vocalization and received training countless times.
“Oh my. Our Siwoo hyung. That was hard. Get on my back. I’ll carry you to the waiting room.”
Siwoo, who had been standing still, stepped back a little from the broad back that suddenly blocked his view, but he chuckled at the action of Yechan lowering his body. He could tell what Yechan, who had bent over slightly, wanted from him. And even at this moment, there were cameras around for behind-the-scenes filming.
Siwoo, carried on Yechan’s broad back, made a V sign toward the camera with a bright smile. Then Yechan shook his body, and though he knew Yechan wouldn’t drop him, Siwoo instinctively grabbed his shoulders.
“Siwoo hyung has been under a lot of stress lately. But didn’t we really do great at our pre-recording?”
When the camera director gave a thumbs up, Yechan smiled brightly and headed to the waiting room while carrying Siwoo.
“Hey. Put me down.”
“I don’t want to. I’ll put you down when we get to the waiting room. Hyung, were you really that nervous? It’s all over but you’re still shaking?”
Knowing that Yechan’s stubbornness was no joke, Siwoo chose to lean comfortably against his back rather than struggle. When was the last time someone carried him like this? He vaguely remembered his parents carrying him in his distant childhood that he couldn’t even recall.
Being carried by someone felt better and more comfortable than he’d thought. Well, maybe it was because Yechan had such a good physique. As Siwoo caught his breath while being carried, his brow furrowed slightly.
Then he turned his head slightly, pressed his nose against Yechan’s back, and sniffed. He could clearly smell the scent of the body products from the dorm and the sweat that had just been shed. However, he couldn’t smell any scent that could be considered pheromones.
In Evan’s case, even just being near him, he could strongly smell his scent. He’d been told that since both Alphas and Omegas control their pheromones, you couldn’t easily smell their scent. But he’d been told that when you’re this close, you can naturally smell the faint scent that comes with their breath.
Why could he smell Evan’s pheromones from far away, but couldn’t smell Yechan’s pheromones right in front of him? There was no way Evan couldn’t control his pheromones. If he hadn’t been able to control them, Chan or Yechan would have told him.
It had been Yechan who had previously pointed out Evan’s scent on him.
“Yechan-ah.”
“Yes.”
“Do I smell?”
“What smell?”
“Um… Evanie’s smell?”
At Yechan’s words asking back the question he himself had asked, Siwoo paused a moment before speaking. He rubbed under his nose and buried his nose in Yechan’s back again. But sure enough, the scents he could smell were just fabric softener and body products.
“Geez. That’s what you were asking about? Of course you do. I can smell Evan hyung’s pheromones, mine, and Chan hyung’s too. We’re all living together in the dorm, how could you not smell like us? We all try to be careful, but when we all live together like this, it inevitably rubs off little by little. Why? Does it bother you?”
Yechan, who had paused for a moment at Siwoo’s question, continued speaking as nonchalantly as possible.
He didn’t know what had happened in England, but from that point on, Siwoo and Evan’s relationship had rapidly improved. What growling at each other? Rather, they were stuck together so perfectly that it was becoming burdensome.
Siwoo hyung didn’t seem to have changed much, but Evan hyung’s protectiveness over Siwoo hyung had become noticeably more intense. And it seemed like Evan’s pheromones started rubbing off on Siwoo hyung from England as well.
In any case, he had been accepting that too, but when he smelled the pheromones he felt from Siwoo hyung a little while ago, Yechan thought he understood what it meant when people said their vision went black.
Siwoo had appeared with a bright face saying he hadn’t put in his in-ear yet, while plastered with pheromones that blatantly said ‘Mine. Touch him and I’ll kill you.’
He had frantically searched for Chan, and though they managed to cover it with his and Chan’s pheromones on top so no one else noticed, he really couldn’t understand what Evan hyung had been thinking to do such a thing.
Moreover, what Chan hyung said when he appeared shortly after was even more absurd.
‘They’re secretly dating. So they can’t let others find out. So he’s telling us to deceive Siwoo well. We absolutely don’t know they’re dating. Even if they hug and kiss in front of us, it’s just because they’re insanely close. Got it?’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘It seems like he’s saying they’re doing a public relationship that’s like a secret relationship where only Siwoo doesn’t know the relationship is public.’
‘……That’s even more confusing.’
‘If you want to live, pretend you don’t know even if you know.’
“Is that normal?”
In any case, whether his acting had worked or not, Yechan swallowed a sigh internally at Siwoo hyung’s calm tone.
“That’s right. If it bothers you, hyung, I’ll tell the hyungs to be more careful.”
This time Siwoo brought the sleeve of the shirt he was wearing to his nose. It smelled the same as Yechan.
This is strange. The mint scent he clearly felt from Evan seemed to be his pheromones. And just now Yechan said he could feel everyone’s pheromones on him. Then shouldn’t he be able to smell the mint scent on himself right now? Why can’t he? Even if he couldn’t recognize Yechan’s and Chan’s pheromone scents because he doesn’t know exactly what they are, what’s the situation where he can’t even smell Evan’s scent?
The word ‘pair’ and the mint scent of Evan that he was sensing.
And his current age of twenty. Very, very exceptionally, there were occasional cases of people manifesting as Alphas or Omegas at a late age in their early twenties. So he had vaguely wondered if that might happen to him…
Are there cases where you selectively smell Alpha or Omega pheromones? Ah. I really don’t know.
At the familiar scent he suddenly felt, Siwoo straightened his body from where he’d been leaning comfortably and whipped his head around to look behind.
From a short distance away, Evan was approaching with quick steps. His expression wasn’t good as he came while shaking off his sweat-soaked hair from the rough choreography. At that appearance that didn’t hide his displeasure at all, Siwoo unknowingly rapidly tapped Yechan’s back with his palm.
“Hey. Hey. Quickly. Quickly.”
“What? What is it?”
“Put me down quickly.”
“Eh. The waiting room is right ahead. We’re almost there.”
No. That’s not what’s important right now. I think Evan is angry. We might die here, you and me.
“No. Right now…”
Evan’s approach was faster than telling him that Evan was right behind them, and before he could avoid it, Siwoo was dangling in Evan’s two hands.
Even so, he was a man who weighed about 60kg, but Yechan and Evan treated him like a child. He’d been on Yechan’s back until just now, but now Evan was holding him up by his armpits.
“If it’s hard to walk, tell me.”
“Put me down first before you talk.”
“You have energy left? Then. Carry me.”
Sangjun, who had been passing by, clung to the back of Yechan who was standing there in surprise, and only then did Siwoo’s feet touch the ground.
Really, even when he tried to think about something properly, he couldn’t be serious when he was with these members.
* * *
“Are you okay?”
Siwoo, who had been lying on the sofa, opened his eyes at Chan’s words. Am I okay? This isn’t a situation that can be explained as okay or not okay.
He couldn’t remember when he’d slept comfortably at the dorm. He recharged his stamina by dozing off in the car during transport, in the waiting room while waiting for filming, during the time he received hair and makeup.
He couldn’t recall calmly having a meal while leisurely conversing at a restaurant either. He just ate whatever the manager gave him, whatever food was prepared in the waiting room, without being picky, to fill his stomach. Even filling his stomach was a luxury. It was more accurate to say he was just forcing himself to eat for survival.
Had he ever been this busy in his life? He could say with certainty that even if he added up all his countless regressed lives, it had never been like this.
‘Lucifer’ had taken first place simultaneously upon entering the music charts in its first week, and had already been running at first place on various music charts for three weeks. The variety shows he had wanted to appear on were scrambling to cast them.
Siwoo strongly agreed with Sangjun’s words that the reason they went to the dorm wasn’t to rest but to wash up. Even the members who had initially approached filming enthusiastically seemed to be reaching their physical limits.
“I’m still alive.”
Siwoo answered with a chuckle. 9:40 PM. What Chan had just handed him was an iced Americano. In other words, he wouldn’t be sleeping today either. He really felt like what was circulating through his body wasn’t blood but caffeine.
“Let’s just endure today. Tomorrow we can at least rest for about 8 hours at the dorm.”
“Ah, how sad. Hyung. You know that’s not comforting at all, right?”
Siwoo, who opened his drowsy eyes, bit the straw and drank the cold coffee. Doesn’t drinking something cold wake you up?
“The goal is to raise the tension as much as possible and finish recording quickly, you know that, right?”
Siwoo placed his hand over Chan’s hand that was patting his shoulder.
Hyung’s heart is my heart. He sincerely wanted to go into his bed at the dorm and lie down.
