TBM Vol 2 Part 14

“…Seo, Lee Il-seo.”

Lee Il-seo opened his eyes with a small sigh at Choi Kyung-hyun’s careful voice waking him.

While resting with his eyes closed, unwanted memories had surfaced, making him feel uneasy. It had been eight years since he escaped from Kang Hyung-won’s grasp, yet the traces left by him still constricted his breathing. Lee Il-seo lay quietly in the trunk after regulating his tired breathing.

Filming resumed at Director Chae’s signal. Lee Il-seo closed his eyes and tried to breathe evenly with an enduring heart, actively trying to erase the thoughts that involuntarily arose in the narrow, dark space. From outside, Lee Geun-soo and Park Jae-ho’s dialogue could be heard echoing. Soon after, the movement and vibration of Park Jae-ho starting the vehicle was transmitted.

They filmed the same scene from different angles two more times, and in the final take, they installed a camera in the trunk and filmed Lee Il-seo groaning while being shaken around.

“Cut! Okay.”

“Good work everyone!”

With the cut signal, the trunk opened. As Lee Il-seo trembled and couldn’t get up properly, Choi Kyung-hyun came forward to untie his hands and feet, and the props team quickly approached to cut the knots. Choi Kyung-hyun held Lee Il-seo’s sweat-soaked forearm and examined his complexion.

“Your hands are so cold. Are you okay?”

“Yes, I think I’m much better because I took painkillers earlier.”

Lee Il-seo slowly got out of the trunk while firmly pulling up the corners of his mouth. Fortunately, his filming portion for today ended here.

Sa Seung-yeon and Park Jae-ho were scheduled to film a vehicle action scene timed with the sunset. Lee Il-seo approached Director Chae, who was busy setting up the shoot, and bowed his head.

“I’ll be leaving now.”

“Alright, you worked hard with the script changes. I had no idea your motion sickness would be so severe.”

Lee Il-seo bit his lip and smiled awkwardly, and Director Chae patted his shoulder with an apologetic smile.

“Rest well today, and I’ll see you at dawn tomorrow.”

“Yes, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As Lee Il-seo was bowing respectfully, he turned his head feeling a gaze on his cheek, but his eyes quickly missed Sa Seung-yeon’s, who was surrounded by staff preparing for the shoot.

Having missed the timing to greet him, Lee Il-seo remembered that Sa Seung-yeon had told him not to look at him and slowly turned away with his head down.

“…Urp.”

Lee Il-seo, putting his arms into the cardigan Choi Kyung-hyun had draped over him, staggered and covered his mouth while walking to the parking lot. Feeling nauseous, he quickly ran and grabbed a utility pole in a narrow alley and began to vomit.

Choi Kyung-hyun, who had urgently followed Lee Il-seo, patted his back as he coughed.

“Urgh, ugh….”

“That’s it, just get it all out.”

“Urgh, cough… Ugh.”

“If your body can’t handle it, you should consider changing the script, you stubborn fool.”

Choi Kyung-hyun furrowed his brow in frustration and continued.

“If you said you have claustrophobia, everyone would understand. Why are you so concerned about appearances?”

Choi Kyung-hyun handed him the bottled water he was holding, and Lee Il-seo rinsed his mouth several times. Raising his pale face, Lee Il-seo wiped his tear-filled eyes with the back of his hand and exhaled a long breath.

“Don’t you remember when I mentioned it once and was sent home that very day?”

On the day Lee Il-seo appeared as an extra in a music video, cast as ‘Zombie 1 jumping out of a coffin’, he gathered courage to say he wanted a different zombie role because of his claustrophobia. The director, looking Lee Il-seo up and down, told him to just go home if he was sick and sent him away that day.

Choi Kyung-hyun had been the driver that day, and despite experiencing the bizarre ecosystem together, Choi Kyung-hyun’s reassurances that others would understand his situation did not resonate with Lee Il-seo at all.

“What about medication? Can’t you take something for it in advance?”

“When I take that, I get foggy… And have trouble remembering my lines. I take it when I’m not working, but it’s impossible right now.”

“Sigh, let’s at least get you an IV drip before going home.”

“Ah, but the painkillers I took earlier seem to be working a bit. From now on, I’ll have to diligently take painkillers first.”

“What? Diligent? You fool, is that something diligence can fix? I feel like my lifespan has been cut in half.”

Choi Kyung-hyun lightly struck Lee Il-seo’s back. With one eye closed, Lee Il-seo swayed slightly as if even smiling was an effort, and barely managed to get into the car.

At the entrance of the alley where Lee Il-seo and Choi Kyung-hyun had left. Sa Seung-yeon, who had been standing still, leaned his back against the wall. Even after giving him painkillers, Lee Il-seo’s complexion remained deathly pale, so he had sent Hwan to buy motion sickness medication.

He couldn’t help but worry about Lee Il-seo’s mention of motion sickness. Even giving him the benefit of the doubt that he was really sick from motion sickness, Sa Seung-yeon thought painkillers alone wouldn’t be effective during travel by car.

He received the motion sickness medication from Hwan, who had gone to the pharmacy while Lee Il-seo was filming, and followed after Lee Il-seo to give it to him after he finished shooting.

But when he faintly heard the sound of vomiting from a distance, his heart skipped a beat, and when he heard the manager mention claustrophobia, his heart sank completely. Lee Il-seo had been suffering for a completely unexpected reason.

Sa Seung-yeon ran his palm across his face as he reflected on his own comments made while the pale guy stood there. He slowly closed his eyes with his head tilted back against the wall.

‘Claustrophobia…?’

Several concerning incidents flashed through his mind, and his jaw involuntarily tightened. The motion sickness medication box in his hand crumpled with a crackling sound.

Throughout the filming, he kept remembering that weakened expression as Lee Il-seo fidgeted with the painkillers. In the end, Sa Seung-yeon, unable to fully concentrate on filming due to his troubled mind, called Lee Il-seo as soon as he arrived home. But the call didn’t connect even after three missed calls accumulated.

His pitch-black eyes stared at the living room clock. Current time, eleven at night. Normally, this would be a time dedicated to filming, so it was too early to assume he was asleep. But if he wasn’t feeling well, he might have gone to bed early. Or if not that.

“…”

Suddenly, an image of Lee Il-seo collapsed alone in a cold room flashed in his mind, and Sa Seung-yeon slowly closed and opened his eyes.

He grabbed his coat and car keys. When he pressed the address saved in the car’s navigation, the estimated time appeared, and he realized traffic was more congested than expected. Whenever the car stopped at a red light, he tapped the steering wheel with his index finger while staring at the remaining time.

He thought it might be excessive to act this way just because an adult man was sick, but somehow his thoughts and body were acting separately.

Lee Il-seo was the first exception and variable in his life.

The fact that he resembled that boy. That his phone number happened to end with 4566. That a low-ranking guy with dirty rumors attached to him like Gu Dong-yeong and Chae Geum-soo became his co-star. That he was the one who first proposed sleeping with Lee Il-seo despite having nothing to gain. And that he couldn’t control his pheromones around the Beta.

The leather made a sound as his grip tightened on the steering wheel.

Yesterday, Sa Seung-yeon was surprisingly satisfied with the relationship he formed out of curiosity about whether he could actually have sex with Lee Il-seo. The moment he was about to change condoms while caressing the firm dick, his brow furrowed at the alien sensation touching his skin.

The room was filled with his own pheromones that he had failed to contain. He was literally pouring out pheromones as if petting the empty air—pheromones that would be useless to a Beta. Unconsciously releasing pheromones was something impossible for an extreme dominant, yet his partner was Lee Il-seo, not even an Omega but a Beta.

Looking down at Lee Il-seo, who was just panting without knowing anything, Sa Seung-yeon left the bedroom with an indescribable aversion. After showering in cold water, he smoked a cigarette, suppressing not only his pheromones but also his sexual desire, and promptly sent Lee Il-seo home.

He didn’t want to feel swayed by Lee Il-seo anymore, yet here he was again, heading toward Lee Il-seo’s home.

He knew that driving a car to Lee Il-seo’s place at this hour was as irrational and stupid as pouring out pheromones while having a relationship with a Beta, but Sa Seung-yeon was only thinking about confirming Lee Il-seo’s condition with his own eyes right now.

The speeding car soon reached the neighborhood where Lee Il-seo lived. After barely passing through an alley while looking for open space through the car window, Sa Seung-yeon finally let out an irritated sigh.

“Damn, still the same.”

The narrow alley became even more cramped at night due to double-parked cars in the stacked villa complexes and illegally parked vehicles filling one side of the alley. Although Sa Seung-yeon managed to find a space and park, more time had been wasted. He took out the hat and mask he kept in the glove compartment, put them on, and got out of the car.

As autumn had fully set in, the wind had become quite fierce. Sa Seung-yeon’s sneakers strode quickly across the dirty, narrow alley.

Today’s filming must have been forced through by Lee Il-seo’s stubbornness. Sa Seung-yeon himself, not long after his debut, had to film a scene where he fell into water. Though he could swim, it would be a lie to say he wasn’t scared of having to endure in a deep pool until the cut signal was given. But back then, Sa Seung-yeon couldn’t show any discomfort either. Pretending to be brave, he held his breath to the limit with lungs full of air, and smiled brightly while insisting he was fine. The desperation that this opportunity wouldn’t come again if he didn’t seize it now made him ignore his fear.

He wondered if the guy who had always pretended to be fine might be suffering alone now, as if purging accumulated pain. Sa Seung-yeon, his gaze intensifying, approached the building without hesitation. There was a keypad installed at the first-floor entrance, but the door opened immediately when pushed. As soon as he entered the poorly maintained old studio apartment building, Sa Seung-yeon’s expression hardened.

He had made it inside, but there were many room numbers on each floor. Finding Lee Il-seo’s room from here would be impossible. As he slowly considered his options, his gaze fell on the mailboxes. While pulling out and examining the mail one by one, a woman who had just entered the building was staring at him.

Occasionally, there were perceptive people who recognized him even with a hat and mask on. But that would be troublesome here. Sa Seung-yeon pulled his hat down further and turned his back as if to cut off conversation, but the woman, far from leaving, took a step closer. Just as Sa Seung-yeon turned his head to say no photos, the woman spoke first.

“That’s mine.”

Unlike what he expected, her voice was quite unfriendly.

“Pardon?”

“I said you’re holding my mail.”

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

“What the hell, really.”

The woman, muttering irritably, snatched the envelope Sa Seung-yeon handed her and went up the stairs. He belatedly realized that he looked very suspicious, wearing a hat and mask while rifling through someone else’s mail.

Sa Seung-yeon cleared his throat once and continued examining the rest of the mail one by one, but there was nothing addressed to Lee Il-seo. Instead, he checked the mailbox numbers of the rooms without any mail, then headed toward the stairs.

He stopped at each room number that had no mail and checked the recipient names on packages left outside the doors. He would pretend to be minding his own business when someone walked by with a cigarette pack, then resume bending over to check other people’s package recipients once they were gone.

“Damn, my back.”

Finally, on the very top floor, the fifth floor, Sa Seung-yeon discovered a package in front of a door. He slowly bent down to examine the shipping label.

‘Wellbeing Healthy Fresh Tangerine Jelly, … Lee Il-seo.’

“Ha.”

This was the first time in his life he’d felt such a sense of accomplishment. Sa Seung-yeon tossed the package back to its original place and knocked on the door with a clenched fist.