“Let me see too.”
Hearing that Doyun might be seeing someone, Suhyeok turned around and reached toward Doyun’s phone, curious as well.
“Are you guys insane. Stop it.”
With Minjun and Suhyeok teaming up against him, a flustered Doyun reflexively gripped his phone tighter and hugged it to his chest. Seeing that, the two of them latched onto it like they’d struck gold and started teasing him even more relentlessly.
As Doyun curled his body around the phone to keep it from being taken, Minjun kept shoving his foot toward Doyun’s face like payback for earlier. In the midst of the roughhousing over the phone, the sound of the front door opening told them Eunho had arrived.
“We’re not seeing each other. He’s just a junior of mine.”
Doyun finally gave up and flopped limply onto the sofa. Minjun gave Suhyeok a chin jerk as if he didn’t buy a word of it.
“Total lie. What kind of junior gives chocolate this expensive. Suhyeok, grab it and check the profile pic.”
The phone slipped right out of his hand. Suhyeok cracked the pattern lock with ease and opened Doyun’s messenger. He opened the chat that had just been active. When he clicked on the profile, a photo of a man reading a book appeared — Suhyeok lost interest almost immediately and handed the phone back to Doyun.
“Huh. He really is a guy. And pretty good-looking?”
“A guy?”
They’d been so caught up laughing and making noise that none of them had noticed Eunho slip into the living room. Eunho frowned and asked Suhyeok again — “A guy?” Minjun answered with a grin instead of Suhyeok.
“Yeah. Doyun was sitting there texting with this dumb smile on his face so we thought he was into someone, but it’s a guy.”
“I was not smiling like that. And I said we’re not seeing each other!”
The moment he heard Minjun’s answer, Eunho’s expression hardened instantly. Eunho locked eyes with Doyun and tilted his chin up slightly, as if telling him to explain himself — and Doyun felt inexplicably guilty for no reason. So he overcorrected and shouted even louder that nothing was going on.
“Wait, is Doyun gay now? If you want to date a guy that badly, present first and then go for it.”
This time Suhyeok said it in a dead-serious voice. Feeling the heat of Eunho’s glare burning into him like it could set him on fire, Doyun snapped at Suhyeok instead.
“What do you mean gay…. Ha, are you two seriously not going to stop? And for the record — he’s an alpha.”
“An alpha?”
Eunho’s voice dropped another notch. His expression had gone completely flat, and for a moment his eyes flashed with a sharp, cold glint. Suhyeok and Minjun, now knowing that the person Doyun was texting was an alpha — a presented individual — both let out deflated “ahhh” sounds, visibly disappointed at losing their teasing material.
Doyun, meanwhile, felt like he was sitting on a bed of thorns. Even if it had been drunken rambling, he kept thinking about how Eunho had practically begged him not to date any guys — and the phrase Eunho always tacked on like a habit: be careful around strange alphas.
He absolutely was not contacting the junior with any special feelings involved. And yet the way Eunho was looking at him resembled nothing so much as someone interrogating a spouse suspected of infidelity.
“Oh, it’s an alpha? Then he probably really is just a junior. An alpha junior…? Is it Song Suhyeon by any chance?”
The name of the junior Doyun had been texting — Suhyeon — came out of Minjun’s mouth. The reason Doyun had been able to remember Suhyeon’s name so easily was that it was nearly identical to Suhyeok’s, minus the last consonant.
“Yeah, that’s right. How did you guess that immediately?”
“How could I not know. That good-looking kid. He caused quite a stir when he enrolled.”
At Minjun’s words, Suhyeok looked at the profile photo again. It was only a side profile, but he was clearly on the handsome side. Suhyeok turned to Doyun with a puzzled expression.
“But why would a junior leave you chocolate and a note? Like someone who’s interested in you.”
“Why would an alpha be interested in a beta. He probably genuinely just wanted to be friends. Since you’re barely involved in department stuff, maybe you seemed like a bit of a mysterious upperclassman. Something like that?”
Minjun answered on Doyun’s behalf in response to Suhyeok’s question. Suhyeok and Minjun, who had been gleefully teasing Doyun, seemed to have lost the thrill of it. Setting aside the fact that it was a guy — the junior was an alpha, and Doyun was a beta. Eunho being an alpha who hung around betas was the exception, not the rule; typically, presented individuals stuck with presented individuals and betas stuck with betas. There were occasional cases of people dating or marrying across secondary gender lines, but those were exceedingly rare.
“Is that the chocolate the alpha gave you? Hand it over.”
Even with the qualifier of same-department junior, Eunho referred to Suhyeon simply as “the alpha.”
“Yeah. You want some chocolate too? Hey — Eunho wants some.”
Minjun shook the chocolate and looked at Doyun, the rightful owner. Doyun nodded quickly.
“Here.”
Minjun tossed the chocolate to Eunho. Eunho caught the fairly hefty piece of chocolate with one hand and studied it with a slow, deliberate gaze. Then he pressed his index and middle fingers together and ran them slowly across the surface of the wrapper. He didn’t look like someone who wanted to eat it.
He looked more like someone checking whether poison had been applied to it. After methodically running his fingers across the front, back, and sides of the wrapper, Eunho brought his fingers close to his nose. His brow furrowed slightly as he wore the focused expression of someone trying to catch a scent.
“Doyun.”
Eunho lifted his slightly bowed head and called Doyun’s name. His expression — the one that said he was displeased — hadn’t changed.
“Yeah, what.”
“Doyun. You shouldn’t just eat things strangers give you. Didn’t your mom, dad, brother, sister — didn’t anyone teach you that?”
Eunho spoke as if gently scolding a small child. He listed off family members one by one, and when he finished, added — “Right, Doyun? Answer me.” Being suddenly treated as someone who’d never learned basic common sense was beyond absurd.
There was nothing suspicious about the chocolate Doyun had received. For one thing, the person who gave it was a junior from the same department, and Minjun had already taken a bite of it, thereby proving there was no poisoning threat. Eunho turned the chocolate over again, front and back. Not just Doyun — even Minjun and Suhyeok were staring at Eunho with blank expressions, trying to figure out what he was doing.
Eunho leaned down to smell the chocolate, then turned around and walked to the trash can in the corner of the living room. A moment later, the sound of the chocolate being thrown into the bin rang out. The flimsy plastic trash can nearly toppled over from the force of the impact.
“…….”
“…What the.”
A short, stunned sound escaped Minjun’s mouth. But Eunho’s gaze had remained fixed on Doyun the entire time, unchanged from the start.
“Lesson learned, right?”
Eunho asked with a smile.
“…….”
Wearing a calm smile, Eunho looked perfectly normal at first glance. But every single friend in that room knew better than anyone that Eunho was in a slightly heightened state — from anger or irritation.
“Don’t go eating random things people give you. If you want chocolate, I’ll buy it for you. Not ten — a hundred pieces. You only eat what I buy you.”
Eunho said, standing in front of Doyun. He was treating Doyun like someone with a raging chocolate addiction. Doyun wanted to ask “are you out of your mind” — but the whole thing was so outrageous that not a single word came out.
When Doyun just sat there gaping without responding, Eunho stepped closer, bent down, and held out both hands. He said again — “Come on, let’s go. Okay?” In the meantime, Suhyeok in front of them seemed to be pulling out his phone to send a message.
“I said let’s go, Doyun.”
The moment Eunho urged him again, the phones of all three of them — everyone except Suhyeok — chimed with a notification at the same time.
whyiseunholosing it all by himself
The message, typed without a single space and radiating urgency, was from Suhyeok. Sent to the group chat. The one Eunho was also in.
Mortified by his own blunder, Suhyeok scratched the back of his head and glanced over at Eunho. But Eunho seemed entirely unbothered by Suhyeok’s message and just turned off his phone screen.
“…Wrong chat. Sorry. Hey, Doyun — hurry up and go. Go get that chocolate with Eunho.”
Cringing with embarrassment, Suhyeok rushed Doyun out the door. Doyun shot him a glare. Suhyeok was the one who’d messed up, and yet he was the one getting struck by lightning.
As Eunho and Doyun headed out in a somewhat dazed state, Suhyeok called after them, “Take the sweet potatoes!” They must have been heavy, but Eunho hoisted both boxes of sweet potatoes sitting by the entrance in one swift motion.
“Hey, I can carry my own. You’re going to throw your back out.”
“It’s fine. Already got them. Just open the door.”
Eunho, arms full of sweet potato boxes, jutted his chin toward the front door. Doyun unlocked it, and from the living room Suhyeok and Minjun stuck their heads out and called, “See you later!” They got in the elevator, but no words passed between Eunho and Doyun.
