"Sunbae! When you wash pumpkin sweet potatoes, they're yellow, and chestnut sweet potatoes have a purplish tint. Did you know that?"
"Sol."
"Yes?"
"Aren't you tired?"
Jisu naturally guided the freshly washed-up Dansol onto his bed. Jisu thought Dansol would pass out right away from how hard he'd worked, but Dansol kept chattering for a long time—how to tell pumpkin sweet potatoes from chestnut sweet potatoes, and whether he knew how Cheongyang peppers were different from regular chili peppers.
"...Ah. Sorry, sunbae. I was being too noisy, wasn't I? You must be tired...."
"I'm fine. I was worried you might be tired. Did you like today's date that much?"
"Yes! Minhyeok hyung—"
"Hyung?"
He'd been letting it go because Dansol's half-closed eyes and sleepy babbling were cute, but at that one word, Jisu's gaze turned cold.
"Ah... Minhyeok hyung... He told me to call him hyung."
"I'm 'sunbae,' and Jegal Minhyeok is 'hyung'?"
Even the fact that Dansol kept addressing him as "sunbae" and speaking politely was driving him crazy, but the fact that Dansol had gotten casual with another alpha first bothered him even more.
"Looks like you got close in a single day, Sol. But we're sharing a bed."
"Ah... yes.... Right."
Dansol couldn't bring himself to say yes. Sure, Jisu was the one who'd approached him first. And a big reason his life after regression changed was because he shared a room with Jisu. But Jisu didn't feel comfortable the way Minhyeok did. Even sharing a room and a bed, it was nothing like the ease he'd felt around Minhyeok.
"No?"
"Y-yes... yes."
Especially when Jisu stared him down like that—trying to force out the answer he wanted—it felt intimidating, almost unbelievable that they were both omegas. Dansol answered like he was under a spell, just as Jisu told him to.
"Say 'hyung.'"
"...Hyung."
"And say my name too."
"...Jisu-hyung."
"Good."
Half propped up like he was about to devour Dansol with his eyes, Jisu relaxed at the satisfying answer and lay back down, smiling as if nothing had happened. After that, in the silence between them, only Dansol's soft breathing could be heard.
He must have really been tired—Dansol fell asleep quickly.
Watching him, Jisu brushed aside the hair that had fallen over Dansol's forehead. Then, after staring for a long time at that gentle face sleeping unaware, he stepped outside the room.
"Jesus, Buddha, the ancestors—no, I pray to every god in this world. I pray...."
"Agh—fuck! You scared the shit out of me!"
He'd come out to smoke because it was maddening—having Dansol right beside him and being able to do nothing, even though he wanted to swallow him whole.
Jisu startled and jumped when he saw a man under the big pine tree in the front yard, muttering and stacking stones.
"S-sunbae!"
The one out alone in the pitch-black night, performing some bizarre ritual, was Taeoh.
"Jesus. What are you doing out here at this hour?"
Jisu lit his cigarette, rubbing his chest.
"Want one?"
"Ah... no. I'm an idol, so smoking is...."
At Taeoh's answer, Jisu glanced at the camera hanging in the tree.
"That fucking camera..."
Since Jisu never intended to finish the program, the cameras scattered everywhere were starting to piss him off.
Looking around, Jisu picked up a smooth, hard stone. Then he threw it straight at the high-performance camera on the tree.
Crunch— the sound of the lens shattering echoed quietly through the chilly yard.
After that, Jisu acted like nothing happened and held out a cigarette to Taeoh.
"Now it's fine, right?"
"S-sunbae...!"
"There's only that one over here. If you're still worried, I can break one more."
"Ah... n-no! That's enough... enough. Thank you."
In that moment, as Taeoh took the cigarette, his fingertips brushed Jisu's.
Zap—
The jolt of static made Taeoh drop it.
"Ah, fuck—static."
Jisu cursed. Taeoh's entire view filled with Jisu's lips as he swore, and those long white fingers shaking the cigarette off with a soft huhu before offering it again.
Up until then, Taeoh had been stacking stones with dull eyes, like his soul had been stolen by a demon. Now his gaze lit up, sparkling.
Taeoh's heart hammered. How many chances would he ever get in life to meet an omega this forceful?
"Hey. What are you doing—take it."
"Ah! Thank you! Sunbae...."
"But what are you doing here? Trying to scare someone in the middle of the night…?"
"The full moon was up, so I was making a wish..."
And in that moment, Taeoh canceled the wish he'd just been making with all his strength—eliminating Yoon Yeomin—and made a new one in his heart.
Please let me end up with Han Jisu sunbae.
"God, that's… crazy.... Fine. Finish your wish and go back in. Don't make noise—if you wake him up when he's tired, you'll get in trouble."
"Him?"
"Dansol."
"Ah... okay...."
At that, Taeoh suddenly worried that his change of heart might end up hurting someone—since Jisu and Dansol were roommates—so he canceled that wish too, and made another.
Please don't let me make things worse between Jisu sunbae and Dansol 씨 because of me.
No one cared about his guilt, but Taeoh kept making wishes and canceling them again and again until the full moon disappeared.
—Did you all sleep well? Good morning!
It was a time that barely qualified as morning. Late morning, nearly noon—but Jisu and Yeomin, who slept in; Dansol and Minhyeok, exhausted from working in the fields all day; and Taeoh, who only fell asleep at dawn after wishing all night—every face looked caked in fatigue.
—Did you perhaps lose sleep from lovesickness?
—In fact, there was an unfortunate incident last night: one of the cameras our production team installed was damaged. The footage clearly shows who did it, but we've decided not to find the culprit.
—Alpha and omega, omega and alpha. Perhaps there were simply too many cameras in Chunmonggak for two people to meet in secret.
At those words, Taeoh's swollen face turned bright red. Jisu deliberately avoided the sharp gaze of the main PD, Mijin.
—Instead, after discussion, we prepared a special space.
No sooner had the announcement ended than the gate to the wide front yard opened and a trailer rolled in. With dark tinting on its windows, it pulled onto the flat ground and came to a stop.
"We felt there was no place where the cast could freely connect, so we prepared it. Inside that trailer, there are no cameras and no audio—nothing that controls you. However, trailer use is limited to 30 minutes per day."
"Thirty minutes is a bit short..."
As PD Choi added details, Jisu muttered quietly. Hearing that, Daesu's expression crumpled like someone chewing spoiled food.
Seeing it, Jisu shrugged.
"So does that mean anything can happen in there?"
Daesu asked. The way he looked made it sound like he'd bury someone.
PD Choi added carefully.
"Nothing illegal.... Daesu."
"I have no intention of that."
—Alright. Now that you've checked the trailer, shall we move to the pool? To raise your intimacy while you're still awkward with each other, we've prepared a special time.
Without even time to change clothes, they arrived at the pool still in the clothes they'd slept in. Waiting for them were two instructors in yoga wear.
"Hello, everyone! We're Jane and Anna, here to teach you couple yoga today."
They held out capsules to the cast, who stood there looking bewildered—the same capsules from when Dansol drew partner dodgeball.
"Inside the capsules we handed out are colored slips of paper. The alpha and omega who draw the same color will go up onto the matching floating yoga mat over the pool."
Exercise from the morning—Jisu frowned, still half-asleep, when Daesu's mutter came through.
"Why is that bastard making that face? Who's he looking at?"
At the end of Daesu's gaze was Taeoh. Taeoh kept looking over with a strange smile.
Jisu immediately stepped in front of Dansol, blocking his line of sight.
"Seriously.... Everyone knows what's pretty and can't help themselves."
Muttering, Jisu opened his capsule. Since Jisu was publicly an omega, he couldn't do yoga with Dansol anyway, so it didn't matter who he matched with.
"Red..."
"Sunbae! Me! I got red!"
The moment Matteo—who seemed interested in Dansol—saw Jisu's red slip, he came sprinting from far away like an excited puppy.
Jisu felt a bad premonition and turned to Dansol.
"Sol, want to switch with hyung?"
"Huh? Yeah...."
But just as Dansol tried to hand over his sky-blue slip without hesitation, Daesu snatched Dansol's wrist.
"That won't work."
Daesu shook his sky-blue slip with a grin. Dragged off by Daesu's brute strength, Dansol disappeared in an instant.
Jisu had seen this kind of situation countless times. His instincts explained Taeoh's gaze.
Jisu crumpled the red slip in his hand and raked his fingers through his hair.
"Ah, fuck.... This is going to be annoying."
Daesu and Dansol got sky-blue. Taeoh and Jisu got red. Yiyeon and Yeomin, and Minhyeok and someone else, went up onto the white mats.
Iyeon felt relieved she wasn't paired with Dohyeon, whom she found uncomfortable. But watching Daesu suddenly jump into the pool and lift Dansol up to move him, her mood twisted all the same.
The floating mats, deliberately made for two people, supported them more firmly than expected. Still, since they were on water, one wrong move and they might tumble into the pool.
Dansol, who had been paired with Yiyeon before the regression, remembered that time.
It was true—following poses that required fairly intimate skinship had made his heart race.
He was staring blankly at the geometric pattern of the pool tiles when the red mat beside him—Jisu and Taeoh's—rocked and bumped into his sky-blue mat.
The impact made Dansol stagger as if he might fall into the water.
Then Daesu's solid body caught him.
"Careful."
"Ah, thank you...."
Seeing that, Jisu shouted.
"Jeong Daesu! Aren't you way too close? Get away from our Sol."
"You watch yourself. Don't fool around and crash into us."
At Daesu's words, Taeoh jumped forward like a bodyguard—only to retreat immediately under Daesu's pressure.
"Why—do you have something to say?"
"Ah... no?"
Thankfully, Jane and Anna reappeared right on cue.
"Alright! Looks like everyone's in position, so we'll start with warm-ups! Place your hands on your partner's shoulders, and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. At this time, make sure your shoulders aren't raised too high and can stay level—"
"Uh..."
Dansol hesitated, about to put his hands on Daesu's shoulders. With over a twenty-centimeter height difference, Dansol would have to lift his arms up like he was standing at attention.
Sensing the hesitation, Daesu spread his legs wider and lowered himself.
"Better?"
"Yes...."
Daesu's face—always something Dansol had to look up at—was now at Dansol's eye level.
It wasn't like he'd never seen that face before, but meeting his eyes at the same height made Daesu's sharp features feel even more vivid.
Dansol had thought he'd gotten used to being surrounded by ridiculously handsome people, but meeting someone head-on like this felt different.
Sunbaes must see me as a squid...
With that pointless worry, Dansol's face flushed, and he ducked his head.
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