COAC 23

“What are you doing? Why are you tearing at your hair? Did you pick up a weird hobby?”

“I’m contemplating how to shoot a great masterpiece, so just leave me be.”

“Stop talking nonsense and start filming.”

Right. Let’s just do the assignment. He lowered the hands that had been clutching his hair and picked up the phone he had briefly set down to drink water. He spun around, filming his surroundings, until his steps halted at the sight of Kim Chayeon’s back. The way he brushed back his hair as it fluttered in the wind, his eyes gazing into the distance, his broad back. Everything that made up Kim Chayeon was lovely. As if sensing his gaze, Kim Chayeon turned around. The corners of his narrowed eyes curved slightly.

“The hike must have been tough. Seeing as you’re still sweating buckets.”

“It’s not that. I told you, I’m contemplating my work. What do you know about art?”

This moment right now is far more breathtaking than running uphill for hours. The unsaid sentences tingled in his throat before being quietly swallowed.

It was right at that moment. With a rustling sound from the direction of the hiking trail, a man in shabby clothes appeared. The man, whose appearance matched the description he had heard at the rest stop exactly, spotted them and approached with glaring eyes.

“You students got anything to eat?”

Kim Chayeon’s brows furrowed. Without realizing it, Do Hyeonjun took a half-step in front of Kim Chayeon, assuming a guarded stance. It was an agility honed from his days as an athlete. However, it was Kim Chayeon who gently pushed Do Hyeonjun’s shoulder aside and stepped forward. The usual indifference was gone, replaced by a cold, intimidating aura that erupted from him.

“You’d be wise not to make a mistake.”

At the low warning, the man faltered, then fled while spewing curses. It all happened in an instant. Kim Chayeon, having completely shed his menacing aura, turned to look at Do Hyeonjun.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. You?”

“What about me.”

His nonchalant reply made him wonder if what had just happened was an illusion. As the adrenaline subsided, an awkward silence fell. It was Do Hyeonjun who broke that silence.

“There are a lot of people. It seems like a lot of married couples come here, too.”

His attempt to subtly change the subject must have worked, because Kim Chayeon looked down at the scenery spread below the summit for a long while before speaking abruptly.

“They must get along well. My parents have probably never come to a place like this together.”

Do Hyeonjun, who had also been looking down, turned his head in surprise. In the nearly four years he had known him, this was the first time he had heard Kim Chayeon talk about his parents.

“…Those people each had someone they loved, but they had the bad luck of their cycles overlapping, so they were forced to get married. Because I was conceived. But a marriage like that can’t last long, can it? There’s no love, and a child from a mistake was tagged along, too.”

“…”

“Of course, they just avoided each other. Can you even call that a family? I was just a mistake in their lives. It used to feel unfair, but now I kind of understand. Even I would hate to even look at the child of someone I don’t love.”

He could not offer clumsy comfort or hasty sympathy, so he just listened quietly.

“It’s so disgusting how a life can be decided by a single cycle that happened to align without any feelings. Heat, rut, imprinting. None of it has anything to do with my heart. It’s just timing, constitution, and luck. Reacting to pheromones without even loving them, and it’s over after one night. What’s the difference between that and an animal? I find relationships like that so horrifying. Just smelling an omega’s pheromones makes me sick.”

He knew that Kim Chayeon particularly disliked omegas, but this was the first time he realized he held such a strong aversion. And the reason for it.

“…Is that something you should say in front of an omega, Mr. Kim Chayeon?”

He said it lightly on purpose. His heart was pounding slightly, but that was out of relief that his secondary gender was closer to a beta’s.

“You’re different. You’ve never once tried to sway me with your pheromones. Though you did once throw a document in my face while saying not every omega in the world likes you. I was so glad it wasn’t a baseball.”

“That’s because it’s a fact.”

Haha. Kim Chayeon, who had been laughing out loud, opened his mouth again, saying, “So.” In a sudden gust of wind, Kim Chayeon’s hair fluttered about.

“The person I love, I want to choose for myself.”

Do Hyeonjun sat alone in the campus cafe, thinking of Kim Chayeon. What happened on the mountain that day seemed to have changed something for Do Hyeonjun, and perhaps for Kim Chayeon as well. He could not explain it with words, but it was as if they had become a little more relaxed, a little closer. Each time he learned something new about Kim Chayeon, his heart filled up that much more. And he became just that much more unsettled.

As he often did when his mind was complicated, Do Hyeonjun habitually raised his hands and made a square frame with his thumbs and index fingers. The campus scenery beyond the large glass window entered his personal viewfinder. The chaotic emotions receded for a moment, and only light, composition, and the movement within the frame remained.

This major, which he had chosen because of Kim Chayeon, had now become Do Hyeonjun’s own sanctuary.

It was right at that moment. Two familiar figures walked into the frame. Strong sunlight was pouring down on Seo Jeong’s head like a highlight. Kim Chayeon’s face, bathed in that light, was tinged with a faint shadow.

It was a perfect two-shot. A scene he could never create no matter how much he directed.

The moment the cold analysis ended, reality rushed in. He was still an outsider who could not fit in between them. Something that would not change no matter how much time passed. Do Hyeonjun slowly lowered his hands as if collapsing the frame he had painstakingly created. Without looking at the two of them any longer, and worried he might run into them, he packed his bag. His steps quickened unnecessarily as he headed for the club room.

When he opened the club room door, sunbaes he had not seen in a while greeted him warmly.

“Hello, Seongcheol sunbae. I heard you’ve been busy lately, but you came?”

“Oh, Hyeonjun. You know we have an outdoor shoot this Saturday, right? We’re filming for next year’s club promotion, so you have to come. Especially you, Hyeonjun, you absolutely cannot miss it. You have the best skills among us. There’s an after-party too.”

“Okay.”

He always welcomed outdoor shoots. Because under the pretext of filming, he could fill the frame with Kim Chayeon. He had filmed Kim Chayeon a lot at the mountain summit last time, but something was always lacking. He wanted to capture that moment, which would never come again, for longer, and more of it.

A few weeks later, after the outdoor shoot had successfully concluded, the club’s after-party was breaking up past midnight. Seo Jeong said he had to go home and left first, catching a taxi. The other members remaining in the noisy pub also began to disperse one by one, and in the end, the two left to clean up the empty liquor bottles and appetizer plates were Do Hyeonjun and Kim Chayeon.

“You can go first.”

“It’s fine. Let’s go together.”

After a brief exchange, the two left the establishment. The early winter night air was cool enough to chill the lungs. As they headed for the bus stop, cutting through the cold air, not a word was spoken. It was a comfortable silence, steeped in fatigue rather than awkwardness.

“It’s the last bus. We would’ve been in big trouble if we missed it.”

“It was a good thing we cleaned up together, right? If it wasn’t for me, Do Hyeonjun, you would have had to walk to your studio apartment.”

The bus that arrived just then was empty of passengers. As they sat side by side in the very back seats, the bus started off slowly. The late-night city scenery flowed past the window like water.

Kim Chayeon took an earphone out of his pocket and offered one side.

“Want to listen?”

He nodded silently and put the earphone in his ear. It was a sentimental ballad that suited the late hour. I thought he only liked loud dance music, but he listens to songs like this too. It was an unfamiliar melody, but the tender voice calmly soothed his weary heart. The heater, turned up a bit too high, added to his drowsiness.

In the end, unable to overcome the pouring fatigue, his head drooped with a nod. Then, the moment the bus lightly jolted, his body tilted to the side, and his head bumped into Kim Chayeon’s shoulder.

Startled, he shot upright. He could feel himself flushing hotly from the nape of his neck to the tips of his ears, as if all the blood in his body was rushing to his face.

“Ah, sorry about that. I was so tired…”

They had done things like putting their arms around each other’s shoulders so much it was tiresome, so why was just leaning his head on him making him this flustered?

As he babbled an incoherent apology, Kim Chayeon remained silent, looking out the window. Was he offended after all? The moment embarrassment washed over him, Kim Chayeon opened his mouth.

“The bus is shaking. Instead of bumping your head, just lean on me.”

Did I hear him wrong? With his mouth slightly agape, he looked at Kim Chayeon, but he was still looking out the window. Biting his lip, very slowly and carefully, he leaned his head on Kim Chayeon’s shoulder. He could feel Kim Chayeon’s shoulder move slightly. He wondered if it was because he was uncomfortable, but it was not. Instead, he was adjusting his posture so that he could lean more comfortably.