In the end, he stayed up all night.
He had forgotten about the insomnia that had persistently followed him.
The sleep inducer and sleeping pills that had always been in one side of the drawer next to the bed were gone.
Since when? It seemed to have been from that day when Evan first brought plums after the regression. He naturally started sharing a bed with Evan.
The members and managers must have had no choice but to know.
To think he believed their relationship wouldn’t be discovered even though he shared the same bed every night with Evan, whom he’d growled and fought with terribly that first day.
He felt to the bone how much he had been living in a daze all this time.
It seemed the insomnia had disappeared from around that time. Just being next to Evan made him comfortable, and he would fall into a deep sleep without even thinking about falling asleep.
The saying that you only realize the preciousness of something after it’s gone came to mind. He had decided to enjoy it fully. He tried not to fear being loved and loving. Knowing he would lose it, knowing the predetermined end, he had made up his mind to do his best every moment.
Siwoo sat on the bed hugging the carrot cushion, blankly watching the dawn break.
The bed that had always been full of heat was coldly cooled. He couldn’t feel the pheromones that had always been mixed in some way, whether thick or sweet.
If he opened the door like this, went out, entered his room, and apologized first, the slightly twisted relationship could be straightened out again.
Just a few hours, in a space not even a few meters away, even though he was with him, Siwoo chewed on the tender flesh inside his mouth at the chill that wrapped around him.
The source of this chill was only one thing. A sense of loss.
He had thought he was giving Evan one part of his life. He had harbored the excessive greed that he could do both work and love.
‘What are the terms of the deal?’
‘Hm?’
‘You said you’d cherish me so I should listen well. So what do you want?’
‘……I’ll tell you when I want something. Whatever it is, just make sure to do one thing I want later. But for now, hold me more.’
‘Coco, what’s wrong?’
The night that he had started first in the bathroom continued in the bedroom as well. Both Siwoo and Evan knew that if they returned to Korea, they couldn’t spend time as if only the two of them existed in the world like now. So they craved love as if there were no tomorrow.
Siwoo, who had run both hands down his face, put down the carrot cushion he’d been holding.
Insomnia was something familiar to him. Although he hadn’t woken from sleep, for the first time in a long while he sat on the floor and did slow stretches.
Morning stretching that he had habitually done to loosen his heavy body from staying up all night.
It was his routine that he hadn’t done in months.
This was his life.
Siwoo, who had lain face down on the floor where warm heat was rising, stayed like that for a while. He focused on that stiffness that came as the hardened muscles in his body stretched.
He folded his outstretched arm and brought the inside of his wrist to his nose.
He could feel the scent he couldn’t hide thickly. He wanted to hide it like others. He wanted to conceal his emotions that flowed out on their own. What emotions would be in his pheromones now?
He couldn’t always feel all emotions. And it seemed that the emotional synchronization that had occasionally occurred had disappeared since he started properly feeling pheromones. Even while expressing intense emotions last night, what he felt from Evan were superficial emotions.
Irritation? Anger? Things like these. Very complicated and subtle. So it was incomparably lighter than truly feeling all the emotions a person could have in that situation as they were.
“Is it fortunate?”
He was afraid Evan would know his dark inner self. He wanted to hide at least the ugly side that was entirely negative, destructive, and soaked in self-loathing. Even if discovered by everyone, he didn’t want to reveal it to Evan.
He wanted to be loved. Even while receiving love, craving more. His thought of trying to cover his anxiety and impatience only with the love he received from him had been wrong.
He wanted to show only the side Evan liked, only the happy, bright, and pretty side. He had decided to enjoy it until the day came when he would regress again, but the sense of loss he realized in just a few hours started gnawing at Siwoo’s emotions again.
He hadn’t given one corner of his life. Siwoo had already given everything of himself to him. Like clothes getting wet in drizzle, he who had gradually permeated his life had become his everything. Should he live while staying wet like this? Or should he train himself from now on to endure the time without him?
With his nose against his wrist, Siwoo closed his eyes.
Siwoo, who had stayed like that until the alarm he’d set went off, slowly got up. After washing up, Siwoo stood in front of the vanity and meticulously sprayed pheromone deodorizer.
Then Siwoo, who entered the kitchen, pressed the extraction button on the coffee machine and opened the refrigerator to take out bread and put it in the toaster.
He took out marmalade jam, strawberry jam, milk jam, and others and lined them up on the island table, and also took out an apple and peeled it.
“……What? Where’s Evan?”
Siwoo, who was about to take a sip after pouring the freshly brewed warm, rich coffee into a mug, raised his head at Sangjun’s words.
“Would you like coffee?”
“Ah……? Yeah. I should drink in moderation. The alcohol isn’t wearing off.”
“Did you go drinking yesterday?”
“He said let’s just have one drink, but one drink becoming two drinks was nothing. Did you organize your thoughts?”
Just then, when the crisply toasted bread popped up from the toaster, Siwoo placed the coffee and toast together in front of Sangjun.
“About that…….”
“Hey, you have time, okay? I’m not thinking of giving that song to anyone else, and if you don’t do it, I’ll just lock it away, so know that. Do you think creation is easy? If it comes out in one night, who would worry and struggle?”
Siwoo, who had been blocked before even bringing out his thoughts, drank a bit of coffee. The taste of the rich coffee without adding anything felt bitter. This bitter taste suited him. It seemed he had been crazy for the sweetness that didn’t even suit him, for that ecstasy he was tasting for the first time.
“……Coffee.”
At the words heard along with a presence, Siwoo raised his head and unconsciously covered the mug opening with one hand. The reason Evan didn’t let him drink coffee in the morning was simple. He said it would upset his stomach. The reason for not letting him drink it at night was the same. He would stop him, saying he couldn’t fall asleep easily. It wasn’t that he did it arbitrarily, but just tried to fix his wrong habits.
He felt pathetic doing this now, not wanting to show Evan himself drinking coffee. Evan’s gaze touched him and the mug, but he didn’t say anything. He just drank the rich coffee that Siwoo had put down as well.
“What’s the filming today?”
“An amusement park.”
“What amusement park when it’s so cold? After closing hours?”
“Yes.”
“It’ll be really cold. ‘Ocean Story?'”
“Since it’s an indoor amusement park, won’t it be a bit less cold?”
“Still, the opening will be outside. They’ll have put up tons of Christmas decorations. It’ll definitely be an opening in front of there.”
As Evan and Sangjun conversed as usual, Siwoo, holding the mug, quietly headed to his room. He checked the cell phone on the table next to the bed, but Evan hadn’t made any contact. The image of his face as he glanced at him as if checking and calmly conversed with Sangjun just now came to mind.
“Crazy bastard, the disease struck again. Well, it’s not once or twice that I’ve shown a strange side in front of him.”
In fact, from Evan’s perspective, it would be absurd. Just until yesterday morning he had been whispering that he loved him, threw that fit at night, and this morning rebelliously drank coffee right in front of him as if to show him. The coffee he had filled the mug with, saying he would drink it all, was only two or three sips in total.
Siwoo, who put down the mug on the table, burrowed into the bed. Honestly, he didn’t understand his own thoughts and feelings right now. This is why he should have gone to a psychiatrist long ago. Instead of taking sleep inducer or sleeping pills saying it wasn’t easy to fall asleep, he should have treated his mental state that was going crazy.
In the end, he was stepping back again and looking for a corner to escape to.
* * *
“It seems like we need to meet Santa Claus right away, doesn’t it?”
“So today, if we complete all the missions, we can acquire that many free passes.”
Sangjun and Chan stood in the middle exchanging comments. As always, Siwoo, who stood at a distance from Evan, stomped his feet from the cold. In ‘Ocean Story,’ which had high freedom, such actions were no problem at all.
“Siwoo hyung, are you very cold?”
“The cold wind is too harsh.”
Siwoo, who glanced behind him where only a desolate wind was blowing, arranged his disheveled hair and answered Yechan’s question quietly.
“It’s less cold like this.”
Siwoo laughed out loud when Yechan, who had been standing next to him, went to the back and blocked the wind blowing from behind. Then he lightly grasped the hand he held up showing it as if asking if he did well.
“Our youngest is all grown up.”
“Yechan-ssi, I’m cold too, won’t you be a windbreaker for me?”
While Sangjun and Chan were hosting together, Siwoo, who had been joking around with Yechan, told Chan in response to his words that if he felt wronged, he should take Yechan.
“Just take Siwoo-ssi. The first game is singing while keeping your heart rate below 100 while riding the Viking. If it goes over 100, you’re out, if the song stops, you’re out too. Listen to the music well and sing your part clearly.”
“Wow! This is too easy. Quick, quick. Let’s depart quickly!”
At Sangjun’s explanation, Yechan raised both hands and lightly bounced up and down.
“If you sing all of your part clearly and don’t exceed a heart rate of 100, three cards. If only one of the two succeeds, one card. If both fail, naturally there’s none, right? Ah, but what’s this again?”
Chan finished explaining the game rules and received five animal headbands that the PD held out from the front. As befitting an amusement park, it seemed unavoidable that they would make them do something like this.
“You want everyone to wear them? Let’s see, what would be good. Do you have a headband you want to wear?”
Since no one specified who should wear what, Chan held the five headbands divided in both hands and looked around at the members while shaking them. And then Evan, who had been watching the proceedings from a bit behind until then, came forward and snatched the headband in Chan’s hand.
“Why worry about something like this? Siwoo who likes carnivores, here’s a tiger. Tall Yechan is a giraffe. Our reliable leader hyung is a baby shark. Sangjun hyung who likes swag in everything, this is cute and good, a panda headband. And I’ll take what’s left. That works, right?”
Evan put the last remaining green dinosaur headband on his head.
“I think the baby shark is cuter.”
Yechan, who had received the giraffe headband, touched Chan’s headband, who had put on the baby shark headband as soon as he received it from Evan, and expressed his desire to switch.
“No, you’re a giraffe. You have to be a giraffe no matter what. That’s perfect.”
Siwoo, who had received the tiger headband in a fluster, looked at Yechan and Evan who were arguing. It’s a coincidence. Really a coincidence. But to call it a coincidence…….
Evan forcibly put the giraffe headband on Yechan’s head as he kept pouting his lips and muttering about the baby shark.
“Cut-.”
The opening seemed to end here. Sangjun wore the headband around his neck instead of his head without saying anything. At the words to move to the front of the Viking, the staff were busily moving.
“Is a dinosaur the best among carnivores more than a tiger? Want to switch?”
Siwoo, who had been blankly fiddling with the headband without being able to say anything, only blinked his big eyes at Evan’s words. Had he gotten angry alone and sulked alone? Evan was no different from usual.
In the morning, Siwoo, who had returned to his room and lain on the bed, had dozed off just like that. And when Daehwan hyung came to get the members for the afternoon filming and woke him up, Evan had already gone out for other work.
In the end, he rode the van alone and moved, and only met Evan, who had arrived first, when he arrived at the amusement park. As expected, since they were busy with filming preparations, they couldn’t have a proper conversation.
Really, why am I like this? This emotional fight was a problem between Evan and himself, and they shouldn’t interfere with filming because of something like this.
While Siwoo couldn’t give any answer, the headband Siwoo had been holding disappeared and on Siwoo’s head sat a green dinosaur.
