Restart 8

“Alright, alright. Stop playing around. Everyone focus. Up until now, ‘Journey’ has been completely confidential, but from today we need to gradually leak information, so follow along well.”

When PD Lee opened his mouth, everyone stared at him with serious expressions as if they’d never fooled around.

After the conversation ended and he returned to his bedroom, Siwoo rehearsed what he’d just heard. Each of them leaving the country at the airport had been photographed by fans. Plus, photos of them grocery shopping together at the market had started being uploaded to SNS by local fans.

However, most of the market photos were people confirming whether the person they photographed was really their favorite idol.

The most basic mission was to upload at least one photo per day to their personal SNS with the members who were here. However, photos with all seven of them together were prohibited. It didn’t matter if fans deduced the cast members, but they shouldn’t reveal it from this side.

They recommended things like selfies where another member’s back awkwardly appeared. However, they said it didn’t matter if Louis and Ian took selfies together.

In the case of doing personal broadcasts, they were told to only reveal that they were currently traveling and filming.

Siwoo, who was rehearsing several points, thought he should open a personal broadcast tomorrow afternoon if time permitted. He had to brag to his handful of Coco Moms that he was traveling.

Not wanting to leave unnecessary traces, Siwoo always only did lives. That’s why “Coco is a Ghost” was the title of Siwoo’s broadcasts. Whether day or night, whenever he wanted to, he’d turn it on without notice, ramble by himself, and then turn it off—that was all.

At length he’d do 30 minutes, but sometimes he’d really say “Hello” and end the broadcast in 3 seconds.

Lying in bed, Siwoo planned to take a bare-faced selfie and upload it, borrowing the soft lighting beside the bed. As always, he had no intention of writing a caption, so he started looking for an emoticon to explain the situation.

A photo of Siwoo lying with his eyes closed on a pillow, showing off his fair and chubby cheeks under orange lighting, was uploaded along with an airplane emoticon.

* * *

Evan couldn’t ignore Louis sitting on the single bed watching him. The person sharing a room with Evan today was Louis.

One of the most common misunderstandings people had was about the relationship between Alphas and Omegas. Many people thought that if the two were in the same space, something would definitely happen.

Of course, if one of them was in rut or heat, or if their rut and heat overlapped, what people thought could certainly happen.

But even Alphas and Omegas definitely had their own preferences.

“Why?”

“About Siwoo-hyung.”

“Pheromones?”

Evan chuckled looking at Louis who was looking at him with a rather serious expression. Since it was something he’d done himself.

“Siwoo-hyung is a Beta.”

“So?”

“No matter how much you mark your territory like that, Siwoo-hyung doesn’t even know, so why?”

“Alphas and Omegas definitely know.”

Evan spoke indifferently while rummaging through his phone gallery, sitting on his bed.

“You said you met for the first time today.”

“I’m a Coco fan though?”

“What?”

At Evan’s truly unexpected answer, the pillow Louis had been hugging dropped to the floor with a thud. The great Evan was someone’s fan? And his favorite pick was a solo singer close to being a nobody?

No, but still, marking someone else with those pheromones was rude. Plus, Siwoo, who was a Beta, had no idea about the situation. Louis, who had hugged Siwoo out of joy upon meeting him, had a hard time hiding his momentary embarrassment.

If he’d only smelled the pheromones, he would have mistaken Siwoo for Evan. That’s how intensely Evan’s pheromones were enveloping Siwoo’s entire body. And his pheromones carried a thick unspoken warning that was difficult to see as ordinary or accidentally rubbed off.

It was insufficient to call it possessiveness; it was more accurate to say it was a warning to others.

“Got your answer? I’m turning off the lights.”

Louis wanted to ask a few more things, but at Evan’s firm tone and the fatigue accumulated throughout the day, he burrowed into the blankets. Louis, who was curious but didn’t deeply involve himself in others’ affairs, planned to watch them from now on. Because it seemed like something fun would happen.

Seeing Louis lie down with his back to him, Evan turned off the lights and lay comfortably in his bed. His phone gallery was full of photos of Siwoo taken today.

A boring succession of daily life.

Continuously repeating time.

A reality that didn’t change.

What kept him going at the moment he wanted to let go of everything in an inescapable yoke was Siwoo. Because if the same thing happened this time, he’d been about to make an extreme choice.

Seeing Siwoo was by chance. As on any other day, everyone gathered in the practice room to practice and then rested briefly when exhausted—he too lay on the cool practice room floor. One member threw down the remote while flipping through TV channels and left. Since he had no intention of bothering to find the remote and change it, he was watching whatever was on.

It was a music broadcast. Evan, who had been watching indifferently, slowly sat up the moment a man filled the stage.

Bewitched. Captivated. It was as if these words existed for that moment.

The title track was a ballad. Though it was a familiar melody and mass-produced ballad, the voice was different.

It was a clear high note. With that singing technique of mysteriously blurring the ending notes, the mournful ballad song sounded sensual.

The next song was a dance track.

How should he express it? He’d never seen such dancing before. It seemed strong, but in an instant it transformed into soft water. Kim Siwoo’s debut stage consisting of two songs passed in a flash.

With a debut stage lasting close to about 7 minutes, Evan became Kim Siwoo’s fan.

He fell for his voice and wanted to keep watching his dancing.

But Siwoo, who didn’t gain popularity, was hard to see on broadcasts. What he could do was replay the few broadcast videos.

Though he anonymously joined Coco Mom, Siwoo’s fan club, information about an inactive singer was like plucking stars from the sky. Siwoo occasionally did lives, but he really appeared out of nowhere without any notice, regardless of day or night, at whatever time he felt like it.

Thanks to that, Evan had never once watched his live.

So much so that they said there was no one among the Coco Moms who had seen all his lives.

Was there really anyone who had seen a live that started at an unexpected time and ended in 3 seconds?

He could have easily gone to find him using his own popularity, but Evan didn’t do that.

Because it was good enough just to watch those videos when he was tired and struggling. He also didn’t want to break the fantasy he had by getting to know that person.

And the moment he saw Siwoo on the plane, Evan had to curse his own stupidity.

If he’d known it would be like this, he would have gone to find him long ago.

That he was the person he’d been looking for all this time.

He instinctively realized that he must never let him go.

And then came the fateful hour of 12 o’clock.

The repeating curse was broken.

Until he asked about the time while shedding tears, Evan didn’t know he’d passed the fateful hour. More than the repeating curse being broken, Evan was happier about the fact that he’d found him.

Even if life repeated again, it didn’t matter.

Because he knew who it was, he could just find him as many times as it repeated.

After looking through his gallery for a while, Evan uploaded one photo to his SNS.

It was the small head of a man looking out the window inside the cramped taxi.

And below it was written the word ‘found’.

That night.

The Coco Moms thought, “Our baby went on a solo trip again.” And anticipating that a live would open soon, they prayed that they would be able to watch that live.

Because he did especially many lives when traveling alone—Siwoo loved to talk about the scenery he visited and the things he saw.

On the other hand, Evan’s fans fell into quite deep discussion.

The man in the photo was not an Ocean member. Because currently, none of the Ocean members had black hair close to a natural color. The small head round like a chestnut, the thin neckline, and the soft shoulders that weren’t very broad—no matter how you looked at it, this wasn’t an Alpha.

A new person had appeared near our Evan, who had never had a scandal until now.

Could it be an Omega? No way, really an Omega?

And various speculations poured out about the word ‘found’.

* * *

They said they’d show the most natural and comfortable travel, and this program was full of rest. Since there was no set wake-up time, everyone moved as they woke up. Today’s schedule was just going out for a meal together around lunchtime, then sightseeing by teams.

Siwoo, who had been rolling around on the wide king-size bed, slowly raised his body. Still not fully awake, he sat down on the floor with half-closed eyes.

He slowly started stretching as he’d done for a long time. The actual period he’d learned ballet was about 10 years. While living as a trainee, he’d tried various methods of stretching before dance practice, but what he learned during ballet suited him best.

That’s why what he did every morning became a habit, and starting the day was always stretching.

As he stretched, languidly extending his whole body, he gradually woke up from sleep.

“Hm?”

If he were fully awake it would take about 3 minutes, but moving slowly, Siwoo blinked his eyes after finishing his stretching, taking over 10 minutes.

“Hyung, you’re really flexible.”

At Louis’s words as he sat on the bed having entered at some point, Siwoo slowly stood up.

“When did you come?”

“Everyone said let’s eat breakfast, so I came to wake hyung up, but you were stretching so I waited. If you’re done, let’s go eat. Ian is making ramen.”

Ramen from the morning?

For Siwoo, whose breakfast was coffee, eating ramen for breakfast was unimaginable.

“I’m fine with just coffee for breakfast. Go eat quickly. I’ll get ready and come.”

“I’ll get scolded if I just go.”

“Huh?”

“Evan-hyung said to definitely bring you.”

As Evan’s name came from Louis’s mouth, Siwoo’s steps toward the bathroom stopped. Seriously, why are you doing this to me? It was excessive interest to just lightly ignore.