“Ah…… what do I do.”
Evan stroked the head of Roxy, who was sitting obediently in his arms, while watching Siwoo cover his face with both hands and twist his entire body around.
Honestly, he hadn’t expected things to turn out this way either. Since he thought it was the last time, he wanted to create one more unforgettable memory for Siwoo.
It was always the same repeating pattern, and although things had gone wrong once during a past time period, didn’t he end up not regressing in the end?
If he went back, he had planned not to even look in this direction. He wanted to have an ordinary relationship where he didn’t have to care about people’s gazes. He wanted to go around freely without things like hats, masks, and scarves. He was sick and tired of this lifestyle of searching for times and places where there were no people.
He wanted to hold hands tightly and comfortably go to movie theaters or department stores, and go on trips too. He wanted to embrace and kiss freely on the streets. He had dreamed of that kind of life, but as expected, they remained stuck in this time period.
Right now, Siwoo was focused on the fact that he had proposed, and had completely forgotten that he had cunningly rejected the proposal with a “Not yet” – a rejection that wasn’t quite a rejection. Although Siwoo turned all the arrows of criticism toward him, saying how could he say such things in front of all those people, Evan only smiled.
After the fateful moment passed, he had to listen to Siwoo’s nagging for a couple of hours straight. Although three years wasn’t a short time at all, he couldn’t make any retort to the dazzling profanities he was hearing for the first time.
‘Give me your phone.’
Only after ranting for a while did Siwoo seem to regain his senses and look at his mobile phone, but upon seeing the internet news plastered with stories about the two of them, he entered round two.
“Does it have to be today?”
When Siwoo, who had been walking around the entire house unable to hide his uncomfortable feelings, stopped in his tracks, Rush, who had been happily following him around, also stopped and lowered himself to sit beside Siwoo.
“We can’t postpone it any longer.”
Three days had passed since the public concert proposal, and Evan and Siwoo were in England. They had told their agency to give them time and chose to go underground, ignoring the internet news.
Normally, Evan would have taken action first to prevent the internet news from spreading, but this time he let things flow as they would. He thought it would be good to have a public relationship at this point.
“So you’re saying we should acknowledge it?”
Evan nodded his head slightly while watching Siwoo, who was standing crookedly by the window running his hand through his hair. The bright sunlight beautifully scattered around Siwoo. His black hair sparkled in the light, and his white skin looked even more transparent.
A distinctive emotion rose in Evan’s eyes as he looked at the collarbones, neckline, and shoulders revealed above the loose white t-shirt. Come to think of it, because of Siwoo’s heightened sensitivity, they had unintentionally been keeping their distance for several days.
“Yeah, let’s deal with it. CFs will fall through, fans will turn away. What else could there be besides that? Does the agency pay the penalty fees or do I? Or maybe the rich Evanie will take care of it.”
Evan felt like bursting into laughter at the sight of Siwoo clenching both fists tightly as if he had finally made up his mind, but he bit down hard on his molars and held it in. He absolutely could not upset Siwoo.
Rather than popularity dropping and incurring penalty fees, right now love calls were pouring into the agency like crazy.
The first official couple within an idol group was material worthy of global attention. As Siwoo worried, the career they had built up over the past three years was too substantial to crumble in an instant.
The first year was rookie awards, but from the following year they swept the grand prizes. On top of that, this was Ocean, who had successfully completed their overseas tour concert with all seats sold out.
“Are you ready?”
The live broadcast preparations had been finished long ago. It could start immediately with one click.
Having a press conference to reveal that they were dating seemed ridiculous, so they had coordinated with the agency to just do a simple live broadcast together.
Since Siwoo would get chills at the mention of live broadcasts, they had never once done a live broadcast with just the two of them. This was due to Siwoo’s firm decision that he couldn’t handle Evan’s impulsive actions. Whether they would explain or acknowledge it, they had to do a live broadcast together today at least.
“Watch your words. Look at the mood and if it seems wrong, we’ll end it quickly. Absolutely don’t say anything acknowledging it, and don’t say anything denying it either.”
Listening to Siwoo’s earnest instructions, Evan tapped the seat next to him with his hand.
“Do I look okay?”
Evan tidied up Siwoo’s disheveled hair with his fingertips as Siwoo sat in the chair taking deep breaths, and only then did he get up from his seat. He brought two cups of coffee and placed them on the table, checked on Siwoo once, then pressed the button.
Finally, the curtain rose on the live broadcast of the century.
The image of Evan leaning back comfortably in his chair and Siwoo continuously stroking Roxy in his arms was broadcast in real-time in one frame.
“Wow.”
Although he had done quite a few live broadcasts, this was the first time he had seen the number of participants rise this quickly. Not only was the participant count rising, but Evan’s relaxed expression changed slightly at the chat window going up like crazy.
“……This isn’t broken, is it?”
Siwoo, who had been unable to look at the camera and was only bothering Roxy, raised his head at Evan’s small voice and then looked at Evan in disbelief at the unbelievable situation.
“It just means they’ve been waiting a lot. Nimo. Hello~”
Evan waved his hand toward the screen, and at that sight, Siwoo also quickly waved his hand slightly. Siwoo’s hand, which had been floating awkwardly in the air, went to fidget with his lower lip out of habit.
“The concert ended well, and we’re in England for a short vacation.”
Instead of Siwoo, who could only blink his large eyes and couldn’t say anything, Evan communicated comfortably. Rather than looking at the rapidly rising chat window, he simply conveyed his greetings.
Unable to watch Siwoo still touching his lips through the screen, Evan subtly reached out and grabbed Siwoo’s wrist.
“Roxy and Rush really like Siwoo. Ah! Do you want to see Rush too?”
Evan, who had been checking the rising number of users, got up from his seat and opened a door a little distance away, and at the same time Rush ran in. Rush, who immediately went to Siwoo’s side, stood with his front paws on the table and pushed his face toward the camera.
At Rush’s action of blocking the screen, Roxy, who had been sitting obediently in Siwoo’s arms until now, irritably threw a cotton-paw punch at Rush.
“Rush, sit properly.”
Although he wanted to call it a fight between dog and cat, Rush lightly ignored Roxy’s one-sided cotton batting and backed away when he found nothing particularly interesting on the table.
“We’re doing well.”
Siwoo gave up on reading the rapidly rising chat window and brought out words he had carefully selected for a long time. Isn’t it nighttime in Korea right now when it’s daytime in England – it seems like they had interrupted people’s sleep. The speed of the Nimo’s chatting gradually decreased as they watched Siwoo and Evan exchanging ordinary everyday words.
Only now were the words asking if he really proposed starting to be properly visible.
“Coco, Would you marry me if I asked?”
When Evan brought up the words he had said at the concert venue again, Siwoo pulled his body back with a stunned expression. He had not expected to hear these words again at all.
“I said exactly this. But Coco says ‘Not yet.’ It’s neither a rejection nor an acceptance.”
Siwoo hit Evan’s forearm quite hard as he calmly tattled to the Nimo about what happened that day.
We agreed not to talk about this stuff. Wasn’t the agreement to not affirm or deny, and only talk about ordinary things?
“That’s because you were joking around. Evanie often says random things so just think of it that way. Our schedule – well, we’ll take a break for a while first, then we have to start preparing for the next album. We won’t be in England for long.”
“Where do I like about Siwoo? Everything’s good. Coco, what do you like about me? Everyone’s curious.”
Unlike Siwoo who was trying hard to lead the conversation, Evan kept his gaze on the chat window and answered diligently.
“I don’t like anything from your head to your toes. Our duet song? I haven’t thought about it. We already did it once.”
A chaotic live broadcast in the same space with different conversations was awkwardly continuing.
Siwoo, who had been extremely nervous at first, gradually relaxed and leaned back comfortably in his chair, still playing with Roxy in his arms. Siwoo’s gaze turned toward the chat window as he lifted Roxy’s front paws to make a heart shape or showed his jellybeans.
At first it had been rushing up like crazy, but now he could view it somewhat comfortably.
The chat window couldn’t only have good words. Even while looking at the criticism mixed in here and there, Siwoo’s expression, which had been indifferent, suddenly hardened. Then he lowered his head. He knew that he couldn’t only see good things and there would inevitably be harsh words, but being hurt was being hurt.
You don’t know how hard we had it, you don’t know how much pain I was in. Even though he knew they said such things because they didn’t know, when chats with content saying to break up because Evan was too precious kept coming up, he couldn’t help the surge of emotion rising up.
“We haven’t even properly started, so what’s with telling us to break up right away? What breaking up when we’ve even imprinted?”
The moment grumbling words like a soliloquy came out of Siwoo’s mouth, silence arrived.
Evan, who had been talking about an episode from this concert, stopped talking, and Siwoo’s action of tearing open dog gum for the wandering Rush also stopped. In the chat window, sentences containing the word ‘imprinting’ went wild.
Evan looked at Siwoo, and only Rush, who had received the dog gum from Siwoo’s frozen hand, was excited and bouncing around.
The flustered Siwoo slowly turned his head toward Evan, and the moment their eyes met, Evan burst into loud laughter.
His large pupils shook anxiously. He had said not to cause trouble, but it was always Siwoo who caused bigger trouble.
Evan, watching that expression that seemed to be looking for a way to fix the situation, couldn’t easily stop laughing.
He said not to talk about their relationship, but what kind of case is it to bring up imprinting? Imprinting is a phenomenon that doesn’t occur between alphas and betas.
Siwoo, who was still officially known as a beta, had publicly revealed the most important fact to the world.
How are we going to cover this up again? At the sight of Siwoo, who seemed to have completely lost his mental composure, Evan stood up without being able to stop laughing.
The last screen of the live broadcast that ended so suddenly without warning was Evan’s other hand stroking the head of Siwoo, who was sitting there in a daze, while one hand turned off the live broadcast.
