[Part 3]
Siwoo, who had collapsed onto the practice room floor, stared blankly at his reflection in the mirror. There was a person wearing hair plastered haphazardly to his forehead with sweat, a loose cotton t-shirt, ripped jeans, and sneakers.
His two cheeks flushed from the heat were red, and his breathing was rough from repeated practice.
This was a sight all too familiar to him. He had lived in practice rooms for hundreds and thousands of hours, and when all the energy drained from his body and he had no strength left to stand, he would collapse like this and endlessly stare at his reflection in the mirror.
He had endured the long hours while dreaming that someone would recognize his efforts, that he could run freely across a stage instead of in a practice room full of musty smells.
“Haah…….”
Siwoo wiped his wet face with both hands and swept his hair back.
Just last night, Siwoo had been standing on a glamorous stage hearing people’s cheers.
At the music awards held domestically, following the Rookie Award, they even received the Boy Group Performance Award. Although he didn’t cry as much as in Hong Kong, this time too, all he said in his acceptance speech was ‘Thank you. We will work even harder.’
If he traced his memories back a bit further, the moment he set foot in the arrivals hall, Siwoo felt like a new door was opening before him.
What happened in England, everything that had happened to him for about ten days, seemed like a dream.
Leisurely, quiet time. Rolling around in the living room with Rush and Roxy, the countless kisses and relations he shared with Evan all felt like a fantasy.
Going around the crowded department store without worrying about others’ gazes, traveling in a luxury sedan with a chauffeur. Meeting his family too.
Even the private plane he had been on until just a moment ago seemed to disappear like a dream.
The managers and bodyguards who had come to pick them up.
The moment the arrivals hall door opened and he took one step, Ocean, Evan, Siwoo. Many people recognizing them and calling their names. The shower of flashes bright enough to make it uncomfortable to open his eyes seemed to tell him exactly where he was positioned now.
He had gotten one step closer to the world he had so longed for and dreamed of.
Siwoo raised his hand and stroked his neckline and shoulders. The traces Evan had left countless times had completely disappeared. There was no strength in Siwoo’s hand massaging his shoulders.
The words he had heard at the hospital they stopped by before returning to Korea floated around in his head.
What they officially put down was late manifestation.
Only Evan knew Siwoo’s pheromones, and the part where Siwoo couldn’t smell any omega or alpha pheromones except his own and Evan’s required additional testing and was noted as an abnormal phenomenon.
Fayden also said hidden omega seemed more fitting, but they decided to leave it as late manifestation on the official documents to prepare for any incidents that might occur in the future.
A person who exists for only one person.
If he hadn’t met Evan, Siwoo would have lived his entire life as a beta.
But……. Strength entered Siwoo’s hand that had been touching his shoulder.
During the countless times that made him dizzy just thinking about them, Evan had not imprinted on him.
Even while calling him pair without hesitation and whispering love, he had not imprinted.
Why? Why on earth?
But Siwoo also couldn’t bite his shoulder. Because he had learned the weight that imprinting carried, it could become a terrifying shackle like a punishment where they would be bound to each other until death.
If they impulsively imprinted just because they felt good now? Evan wouldn’t be able to meet anyone else for his entire life. If time got twisted again in the not-so-distant future, what would really happen to the one left behind?
What effect would imprinting have on him, who had to live for his entire life, no, for the past decades, and for hundreds and thousands of years to come? If it was something that would affect him until death, he wanted to imprint with him.
From memories that faded over time, he would remember Evan clearly. If he could remember eternally only this period of time they spent together, he felt like he could really sell his soul.
He would live with this memory, but what about Evan? The Evan of this timeline?
He wished he could regress together with him. Even if they repeated the same time countless times, wouldn’t they be happy if they were together?
When his thoughts reached that point, Siwoo chuckled at himself in disbelief.
How could he think of putting this time, which was overwhelming even alone, on him too?
You’re the worst, Kim Siwoo.
Once thoughts started extending in an absurd direction, they grew wildly without giving him room to breathe. That’s why he couldn’t ask why they weren’t imprinting. He didn’t even dare to do it first himself.
“Are you feeling empty without Evan?”
Siwoo, who had been sitting there in a daze, unconsciously shook his head quickly at the words he heard from beside him. Sangjun hyung, who had handed him a water bottle, was sitting next to him drinking water.
It wasn’t just himself in the mirror. On one side, Yechan was watching Chan hyung’s choreography, and Sangjun hyung, who had been repeating the same movement until just now, was now beside him.
“What’s there to feel empty about?”
“You’ve been staring at the door since earlier. You seem to be looking at the mirror, but your eyes are looking at the door reflected in the mirror.”
At his words as he chuckled, Siwoo sheepishly fiddled with the water bottle in his hand.
Siwoo, who had snapped awake from his heavy thoughts, was busy organizing his complicated emotions and feelings.
The members were the same as usual, but thinking that they knew about his and Evan’s relationship, he couldn’t easily make any actions or words. His relationship with Evan was by no means a beneficial situation for the team either. But they tacitly acknowledged it and didn’t bother bringing it up.
“That’s not true…….”
Was he really looking at the door? As soon as Evan arrived in Korea, he was busier than the other members, as expected. From what he briefly heard in the morning, there was even a love call from a drama. Not a lead role, but a supporting role with quite a bit of weight.
He would get even busier in the future…….
“If you say it’s not, then it’s not. Ah, playing around was really the best. But what are you going to do about the lyrics?”
Siwoo, who had been sinking down, blinked his big eyes at Sangjun hyung’s question.
“Is that song still available?”
Lyrics. He recalled the words he had impulsively said to him last time.
“Not that one. There’s a different one. Something just like you.”
“I don’t know if I can do it well.”
Siwoo, who had been fiddling with the water bottle, opened the cap and moistened his dry lips by opening his throat to drink. After telling Sangjun hyung that he wanted to write lyrics, he hadn’t done it properly. His schedule was busy, and with so many things going on, he had completely forgotten about it. Since Sangjun was also busy, it had just passed by vaguely like that.
“There’s no such thing as doing well or not. You just try. I think it would be good to include it in the mini album coming out around when spring transitions to summer?”
“Hyung, if I have no skills and it’s really not good, you have to tell me clearly that it’s not.”
If it were his old self, he would have run away. He might have waved his hands saying how could he do such a thing. After hesitating for a moment, Siwoo opened his lips that had been tightly closed and spoke carefully.
Even if he went back, he had to face it.
In such a short time, he had gained too much and been greedy, so if he lost everything, that sense of loss would be indescribable. But knowing this memory would become the strength to live, he wanted to do more of anything. It was better to have even one more memory of any kind.
Whether painful memories or good memories, he needed to have many memories he could take out.
If he could hold onto even a little bit of the end of any memory, if all those things were related to Evan and Ocean, he would be able to remember a little longer and more.
“Let’s go.”
Siwoo blankly watched Sangjun getting up from his seat.
“Get up. I can’t practice anymore because it’s too hard now, and since it came to mind, we should do it. You need to hear what kind of song it is to write lyrics for it.”
Since the two of them moved together, it didn’t take much time to shower at the dorm, change clothes, and arrive at the nearby studio.
“Being here makes me feel like I could just create songs that didn’t exist?”
“Hey, hey…… Don’t say things like that. Do you know how busy I was moving the studio and resetting all the equipment during this vacation? Put that box down over there and sit wherever. The organizing isn’t finished yet.”
At Sangjun’s words, Siwoo looked around and moved the boxes scattered messily here and there to one corner and stacked them. It was a space where his personality, both indifferent and meticulous, was completely melted in.
“There’s even a recording booth?”
“I poured in all the settlement money. I really need to write songs like crazy.”
When the music revenue is already tremendous.
Siwoo didn’t bother to voice the thought in his head and stopped in front of the tall desk in the middle of the studio. He put down the lemon tea he was holding on top of the standing table, which was much higher than a regular table.
“Why did you put the standing table in the middle like this?”
“I usually work sitting down, but if it’s not going well, I also work standing. Well, on another note, it also means don’t come over here?”
As Sangjun said, he was touching the equipment on the other side of the table, and Siwoo was watching him from outside this table, standing a little apart.
It was definitely a Sangjun-like idea with a wide personal space.
“Don’t just stand there, sit next to me. There’s a sofa.”
“I’m more comfortable just standing.”
“Well, do as you like. Anyway, there are two songs, so listen and you decide.”
Siwoo nodded his head and drank a bit of lemon tea.
Late at night. In the well-soundproofed studio, only the sound of Sangjun touching the equipment filled the space.
Soon, Siwoo listened attentively to a melody he was hearing for the first time.
Sangjun played the song and leaned back comfortably in his chair, staring at Siwoo.
What people express through language is a very small fraction. Actions that come from the subconscious were a person’s true feelings.
With words, one could easily say which one is good, I don’t like it, both are good.
It was too easy to hide one’s true feelings in language.
That’s why Sangjun always concentrated on the person, not wanting to miss even one small action of the person listening to the song when he revealed it. While countless lies could be mixed in words, there was no room for lies to hide in actions.
Especially in a comfortable setting like this where they weren’t conscious of their behavior, all meaning and emotion were contained in actions.
“…….”
But Siwoo’s actions didn’t even need interpretation.
As the gentle song he first played was ending, Siwoo’s shoulders trembled, his breathing as he lowered his head wavered, and water droplets were dripping onto the standing table.
Sangjun didn’t play the second song. He just moved his fingertips and played the same song again.
The song he had agonized over creating had already found its owner.
An indescribable expression appeared on Sangjun’s face.
It was a song he had written after seeing Siwoo sleeping in the tent during the ‘Ocean Story’ filming and Evan watching over him.
