“Evan, do it with someone other than me.”
“What?”
“Bromance. Even if you do it with me, it won’t come out properly on the broadcast. And there’s no need to. You know the PD’s intention better. It’s right to do it with Louis or Ian. If not that, they’d want to see bromance between you and an Alpha or Omega, not with an ordinary Beta.”
“Why?”
“Because even I would want that.”
Siwoo didn’t pathetically talk about what he felt or his role in this program. He wanted to clearly draw a line with him who was approaching so familiarly without any brakes. The connection made here would end here anyway. At first they’d seem to contact each other a bit, but after just a month or two, they wouldn’t even use the most common messenger.
After a bit more time, Evan’s phone number would change frequently, and Siwoo would naturally disappear from Evan’s contacts.
“But I don’t want to?”
At Evan’s firm voice, Siwoo let out a long sigh. Even when he was in an idol group, Siwoo didn’t care about things like bromance. Most of the modifiers attached to him were words like cold or chic. He had white skin and chubby cheeks that seemed to still have baby fat, but his slightly upturned eye corners also contributed to such modifiers.
When his eye makeup was excessive, his eye corners would lift even more, making him look sensitive.
He was close with the members, but didn’t particularly want to deliberately entangle himself with them. At first he openly avoided it and was called by the kind agency CEO. That this was also business. That he needed to moderately show what fans wanted to see. In the end, the compromise Siwoo reached was not avoiding when other members touched him first.
“Whether it’s bromance or flirting, I’m going to do it all to you.”
His eyes, said to pour out starlight, were directed at him. And the words coming from his mouth were enough to make Siwoo dumbfounded.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like it.”
“What don’t you like? You don’t like me looking at you? You don’t like me touching you? Then you don’t like all of this?”
Not even a kindergartener—the end of the extremely childish grumbling was Evan grabbing both of Siwoo’s cheeks. And Evan’s nose tip and Siwoo’s nose tip came close enough to barely touch.
“You’re joking too much.”
Not easily understanding the current situation, Siwoo, who was just blinking, grabbed Evan’s wrists that were holding his face.
“So it’s not that you dislike it. Coco. Let’s not talk about this anymore from now on. You know what the purpose of this program is, right?”
Only after their barely touching nose tips finally touched slightly did Evan let go of Siwoo’s face.
The official purpose of the program was a free friendship trip of seven young men in their twenties. Unofficially, it was to provocatively mix in bromance.
As soon as Evan let go, Siwoo quickly stuck to the taxi door side. And until they arrived, the two didn’t exchange any conversation.
* * *
Imagination becomes reality…
Four Alphas with an average height close to 190cm and Omegas and a Beta in the early-to-mid 170s were busy mixing with each other and exchanging greetings. No, they were busy, and Siwoo waited a bit behind for their greetings to end. Kang Yechan, Choi Hyunsu, and Luca, whose names and titles Evan comfortably called from the beginning, were also famous for their private friendship.
They openly displayed their friendship publicly, and Phantom, a group composed of four Omegas, received the highest treatment everywhere due to their rarity. The evaluation toward Phantom was that they evoked a sense of beauty with ambiguous gender and even a pure feeling.
Ian and Louis, who were said to be hard to rank in superiority there, were here. The world’s only fraternal Omega twins.
True to being fraternal, they each had different charms. Still, being brothers, they had many similar parts. For easy distinction, Ian had hair dyed pink, and Louis had hair dyed sky blue.
“Ian and Louis got even prettier.”
When Luca said this while simultaneously stroking both their heads, the two smiled brightly.
“Hyung, wasn’t your rest period after the final concert two weeks ago? But you came to film?”
“I’m telling you. This PD said I’d regret it if I didn’t appear, and I almost didn’t get to see Ian and Louis. I really would have regretted it if I’d refused the casting.”
Noisy and boisterous.
The staff were busy preparing for filming, and the cast members were busy strengthening their friendship and greeting each other.
Siwoo, who had been standing alone around them, stuck to the large window in the living room and looked outside.
This PD was truly a smart person. The programs he made always became issues, and programs covering that concept were born one after another.
At first, he planned to go on a trip with one group’s members. But judging that free travel would be difficult if there were many recognizing looks whether domestic or overseas, he made this combination.
It was reverse-utilizing fans’ habit of checking where other members are if they see cameras and a group member they know at the same time. If they definitely think they saw a member they know, but don’t recognize the person next to them? They’d briefly agonize over whether what they saw was correct, and if they saw them in an unexpected place, it was easy to mistake it as seeing wrong.
So they kept it top secret and decided on an overseas travel destination with few fans who would recognize them. The accommodations were also places like pool villas, not hotels where many people come and go.
The river Siwoo had seen while coming here was visible from the living room of the mansion on a low hill. Birds that might be ducks or swans were floating on the river.
“Coco.”
Siwoo, who was leaning even his forehead against the cold-feeling window to look around, turned his head at the familiar yet unfamiliar title calling him. Though it was his nickname, Evan was the first person to call his nickname in their actual voice.
He’d seen it in text when doing lives with Coco-moms, but being called like this directly felt strange.
“This is Kim Siwoo. He’s a solo singer and the same age as me. His nickname is Coco, but everyone calls him Siwoo. Only I can call him Coco.”
A large hand that suddenly approached very naturally snatched Siwoo’s wrist and pulled. Evan, who put his arm around the shoulder of Siwoo who came along with his strength inadvertently, introduced him to the others in his place.
“Siwoo hyung. We saw each other in the waiting room hallway before, right? I was disappointed I couldn’t greet you properly, so let’s get along well for 10 days.”
Louis hugged Siwoo, whose shoulder was caught by Evan and couldn’t do this or that. To receive a hug in a situation where he couldn’t avoid or refuse. Plus that affectionate voice. Instead of answering, Siwoo just nodded.
“Ah! Evan hyung, that’s really too much.”
Louis, who quickly moved away after definitely hugging of his own will, grumbled not at Siwoo but at Evan. Everyone was chatting in a harmonious atmosphere, but only Siwoo couldn’t naturally blend into that atmosphere.
“We’re going to start filming now, so we don’t need scenes of greeting each other or anything, everyone just quickly decide rooms with a game and buy things to eat while staying. You know tonight’s dinner is making it ourselves, right? Two cars are prepared, so divide into two teams and move. Cameras are installed in the cars, so the camera directors won’t move together. So you’ll have to drive yourselves, right? Also decide who’ll drive.”
At the words to sit comfortably around the large sofa in the center of the spacious living room, Siwoo quickly sat in a small chair in one corner. He didn’t want to do things like bothering viewers’ eyes by mixing among outstanding looks.
“Hello. ‘Journey’ has begun. Finally, all seven of our members have gathered. First, let’s decide how to divide the rooms while staying here. First of all, there are a total of four rooms here. Since there are seven of us, it’s basically two people per room. We should decide quite seriously, but since we’re hungry, let’s roughly decide and go out.”
Hyunsu, who was the oldest and an actual radio DJ, naturally started the opening. Siwoo listened to his words and nodded appropriately. Whatever game they played or whoever he shared a room with didn’t seem like it would be a big problem. Just sharing with Evan was a bit…
“Hm?”
Siwoo, who was sitting on the small chair with his legs crossed outward, lowered his head at the sudden contact. Evan, who had been sitting comfortably on the sofa but had come down at some point, was sitting on the floor leaning against the chair Siwoo was sitting on. And he was comfortably resting one arm on Siwoo’s thigh while stroking his own hair.
Perhaps knowing Siwoo was looking down, Evan tilted his head back and their eyes met.
“What?”
Evan’s lips moved, but no sound was heard. Regardless of the situation here, Hyunsu was continuing to speak, so Siwoo shook his head slightly and looked at Hyunsu again.
“I thought you were going to do something grand, but flip it over, turn it over?”
At the words that they should first decide the team to ride in the car together since they had to move by car before deciding rooms, Luca spoke as if dumbfounded.
They just said they’d decide rooms first, but now suddenly forming teams to move?
Everyone was saying something while holding their hands forward.
What is there to think about in something like this? Just go with wherever your palm goes.
Because of Evan sitting on the floor, Siwoo had to bend his upper body over him and extend his arm.
“Back of hand.”
Siwoo smirked at the small sound heard in this situation where everyone was murmuring and watching each other. He had no idea why Evan was doing this. So he held out his palm as if to show him, and confidently ended up riding in a different car from him.
