Chapter 69

Yo Han’s question immediately dragged Gyeol back to the moment inside the Pheromone Booth when he’d encountered the final pheromone.

The moment Yo Han’s pheromones had come crashing over him.

The moment he’d fought desperately to keep hold of his sanity, only to be driven all the way to the edge.

“...What about inside the booth?”

Pretending to stay calm, Gyeol answered curtly.

At first, Yo Han had been hiding behind the excuse of being a producer, so maybe he really had known what happened inside the booth. But now, Yo Han was just another cast member like him. Of course, there was no way to know what kind of authority someone like Yo Han had been given by the production staff, but overreacting based on assumptions would only make things worse.

But the thing Yo Han pointed out was something else entirely.

“I’m asking what the hell you did in there to make it start bleeding again.”

With an exaggerated sigh, Yo Han lifted the old bandage for him to see.

The bloodstain on it had already dried into a dark brown-black.

Heat flooded the back of Gyeol’s neck and cheeks.

Pressing his lips together hard, he shook his head.

“It didn’t happen in there.”

“It did. It wasn’t bleeding before you went in.”

“...How do you know it wasn’t bleeding before?”

“......”

At Gyeol’s question, Yo Han fell silent.

Frowning as if annoyed, he shoved the used bandage into his pocket and layered a fresh bandage over the gauze.

“Give it to me. I’ll throw it away.”

“Forget it. Just stay still.”

So this was what it meant when reason didn’t work on someone at all.

Yo Han’s hand held his wrist in place with just enough force to stop him from pulling away completely. Unable to do anything about it, Gyeol pressed his lips together before finally speaking again.

“What exactly are you so concerned about?”

“About what.”

The bandage wrapped slowly around his finger and across the back of his hand.

“Why were you watching my hand the whole time? You were staring at it even before I went into the Pheromone Booth. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to say something like that.”

Yo Han secured the bandage with firm, practiced pressure before pressing an adhesive strip over it.

Still holding Gyeol’s wrist, he quietly looked up at him.

Without avoiding his gaze, Gyeol added,

“When you keep acting like this, it seriously...”

“Seriously what.”

“It makes it seem like you’re worried about me.”

In the end, he’d said it out loud.

Because he wanted Yo Han to tell him it was all in his head.

He wanted him to dismiss him like always. To trample over him carelessly, sneer at him, look down on him.

“Well.”

But that wasn’t what happened.

“Does it look that way to you too?”

“......”

Yo Han shattered his expectations so completely it felt like a physical blow, answering with something that sounded dangerously close to agreement.

Gyeol’s throat closed up.

At the same time, it felt like he couldn’t breathe.

Shuddering without meaning to, he yanked his arm back hard. Yo Han reflexively tightened his grip around Gyeol’s wrist for a moment before slowly letting go.

“You know you look seriously weird right now?”

“Yeah.”

Again, Yo Han didn’t deny it.

“Why are you suddenly acting like this?”

“Suddenly...”

Yo Han repeated the word under his breath as though tasting it over slowly.

That careful, deliberate attitude scraped across Gyeol’s nerves.

The feeling of constantly being dragged around by Yo Han made his skin crawl. Shaking his head sharply like he could fling the discomfort off, Gyeol started walking, trying to pass him.

“There’s one thing I know for sure.”

“......”

Once.

He ignored him.

“It isn’t sudden.”

Twice.

He ignored him again.

“Ever since the first time I saw you, you’ve kept getting my attention.”

But he couldn’t ignore the third one.

Eventually, Gyeol stopped about two paces away from him.

Without turning around, he asked quietly,

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

“......”

“If you hadn’t caught my attention, I wouldn’t have kept watching you. I wouldn’t have worried about you. I wouldn’t have found out you had a kid.”

Gyeol’s shoulders jerked violently.

He turned around with wide eyes, only to find Yo Han suddenly much closer than before.

Standing higher up on the slope, Yo Han looked even larger as he lifted a hand and lightly brushed the back of his fingers against Gyeol’s cheek.

Gyeol slapped the hand away.

Yo Han lowered his chin with a faint laugh.

Even then, his gaze never left Gyeol for a second.

“There’s almost nothing I’ve ever wanted badly in my life. Not objects. Definitely not people.”

“......”

“But for some reason, I keep wanting Go Gyeol.”

Without thinking, Gyeol clenched his fist.

Pain immediately throbbed through it.

It was the hand Yo Han had just wrapped for him.

“It doesn’t even make sense. A married man with a kid who hid that fact and came onto a dating show. Why the hell would someone like that keep getting stuck in my head?”

Did this man even understand what he was saying right now?

“I can’t stand watching you go to another guy. I can’t stand watching somebody else touch you.”

Did he have any idea how those words sounded?

“Answer me, Gyeol Go.”

Right before he’d run into Yo Han, the final interview question suddenly resurfaced in his mind.

“So you said there are two people you currently have in mind. Who are they?”

‘Sun Choi, and...’

“Do you know?”

“......”

“Why I’m like this?”

‘Yo Han Sung.’

Everything about it felt like an incomprehensible impulse.

***

What greeted Hee Jun Kang was an empty mailbox.

It left a bitter taste in his mouth, but since he’d already expected it, the blow wasn’t devastating.

Saying he wasn’t disappointed at all would be a lie. Still, more than not receiving a card from Tommy, what bothered him was imagining how worried his fans would feel seeing him open an empty mailbox.

“Ha...”

Stepping away from the mailbox, Hee Jun let out a long sigh.

Within the group Silver Salt, Hee Jun Kang was what people called an “unpopular member.”

Silver Salt had a solid domestic fanbase and undeniable top-tier idol status, but with fifteen members, there were naturally some who lagged behind in popularity.

And among them, Hee Jun was the least popular member of all.

The “air member.”

Not because he was essential like air, but because people used it as an insult—someone whose presence was so faint it was like he wasn’t there at all.

Gentle and soft-hearted by nature, Hee Jun never fell into despair over the situation surrounding him.

He didn’t envy the handsome, beautiful, popular members. He acknowledged their talent for what it was and worked relentlessly to make up for his own shortcomings instead.

Practice, self-management, communication with fans—he never neglected any of it.

The reason he’d managed to establish himself at least somewhat as a variety-show member came from the same persistence. Even though he was naturally timid, he threw himself into everything from major network shows to YouTube content, even low-rated programs or humiliating variety concepts nobody else wanted.

Then one day, his agency pushed him to appear on R-Connect Season 10.

Apparently, some powerful executive in Mflix Korea’s variety division was close friends with the agency CEO. The company pretended to happily accept the request to send a member from Silver Salt—their flagship group—but they had no intention of risking one of the truly popular members.

Not for a dating show.

And definitely not for R-Connect.

For a popular idol, it was the kind of program packed with risks from every direction.

So they sent Hee Jun instead.

The safe option.

The variety-show member with no particularly strong image attached to him.

Put kindly, he was clean and inoffensive. Less kindly, he was bland.

They shoved him forward saying this could finally be his chance to make a name for himself. Season 10 was supposed to be special. The cast lineup was supposedly incredible. The show was guaranteed to blow up.

Still, Hee Jun had been happy.

The fact that it was R-Connect bothered him a little, but wasn’t there a saying about high risk, high return?

To someone who’d spent his career stuck on the outskirts as an unpopular member, it felt like a genuine opportunity to finally let people learn his face and name.

Internationally, no less.

But his fans felt differently.

Every time he opened Bubble or started a livestream, he was flooded with worried messages and concern. Eventually it got so emotionally exhausting that he practically forced himself to stop checking Bubble and Stargram altogether.

“Hee Jun Kang, please come in.”

Contrary to all those mountain-sized worries, his start on Pheromone Island hadn’t been bad.

Meeting new people had been fun.

He’d quickly become close friends with Jaekyung Park, his roommate.

And while it wasn’t quite excitement yet, there was an Alpha he’d grown interested in.

Tommy.

The owner of the pheromone scent he liked the most.

Moderately.

Comfortably.

Naturally, like flowing water.

That was how Hee Jun had hoped life on Pheromone Island would go.

It would be nice if Tommy chose him at the final selection, but even if he didn’t, Hee Jun didn’t think it would completely shatter him.

At the end of the day, he was still an idol.

Remembering the words his fans had given him, Hee Jun worked hard to keep himself from falling too deeply for anyone.

And he’d liked Gyeol Go too.

Gyeol was gentle. Kind. Charming.

From the very first game, he’d willingly given up first place after winning it all just to rush over to help the injured Isu Yoon.

And he’d always treated Hee Jun warmly too.

But at some point, things had started turning strange.

“Seriously though... isn’t this stringing people along?”

At the time, Hee Jun had nearly felt his heart leap out of his throat.

Would whispering quietly really be enough?

What if the cameras or microphones picked it up?

For an idol whose entire career depended on image management, there were too many things to worry about.

“...I mean, Gyeol Go does seem like the kind of person people would naturally like. The first-impression vote is basically just based on looks anyway.”

He’d genuinely meant it.

And underneath it all had been one desperate hope:

Please calm down. Please stop this conversation.

But it didn’t work.

Jaekyung’s anger, originally caused by Woo Seok Jung, turned toward Gyeol instead, while Hanseul Ga subtly encouraged it from the sidelines.

Hee Jun ended up regretting speaking up for Gyeol at all, wondering if he’d only made things worse.

In truth, none of it had been his fault, and the same situation probably would’ve unfolded no matter what he said.

But Hee Jun couldn’t stop blaming himself.

It had stung a little when Tommy didn’t choose him during the second pheromone matching.

Because Hee Jun had chosen Tommy.

Since they’d already matched once before, they already knew each other’s pheromones.

If Tommy had wanted to match with him again, he would’ve chosen him.

Which meant Tommy’s feelings were probably directed somewhere else.

Still, that was okay.

He could just focus on the time they had left.

It was better to quietly step back from his feelings early than destroy relationships in some ugly emotional fight fueled by jealousy.

So at the very least—

He’d hoped the remaining time would pass peacefully.

But instead—

“I’m not letting ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) this go. Seriously. I’m not fucking letting this go.”

When Hee Jun opened the lodging door, the thing waiting for him was the sound of Jaekyung Park crying miserably.