By Zephyria 
The moment he lifted his eyelids, Haon swallowed his breath.
Faced with Cha Jeong-won’s face right in front of him and the Alpha’s pheromones, Haon unconsciously lowered his gaze before raising it again.
Just maybe. Really, just maybe. The imaginings that had turned his mind into a mess moments ago were still vivid.
But Cha Jeong-won was no different from before.
“Why are your clothes…?”
…on?
Before the question could even finish, Cha Jeong-won shifted his body slightly aside.
What had been hidden behind him came into view.
Cha Jeong-won’s house, the room I stayed in. And the small bedside table placed beside the bed.
“Ah…”
A soft exclamation escaped Haon’s lips.
Not out of futility, but out of embarrassment. It wasn’t his body he wanted to show, but the bedside table.
His face grew hot.
Haon quickly turned his head further toward the bedside table. He tried to act nonchalant somehow.
Cha Jeong-won watched Haon’s reaction and let out a very low laugh. It wasn’t a mocking one. It was a laugh that seemed to find Haon cute.
“What on earth did you imagine?”
“I… I didn’t imagine anything. What would I imagine…?”
Even though his mouth denied it, the back of his neck felt hot. Cha Jeong-won didn’t miss that.
“Yoon Haon.”
Cha Jeong-won’s voice calling his name was so composed it felt even more infuriating. Haon quickly changed the subject.
“But… did you make this alone?”
Instead of answering, Cha Jeong-won glanced down at the bedside table once. As if retracing the time he’d spent making that object.
His gaze lingered on the bedside table for a moment before returning to Haon.
“Who else do you think I would have made it with?”
“Hmm… Alone, I guess.”
Somehow, it seemed like Cha Jeong-won would have handled everything alone.
“Right.”
“You should have told me. You have so much to do, yet you made this alone…”
“Weren’t you curious about the result?”
“I was curious, yes.”
Haon stepped closer and scanned the surface of the bedside table with his eyes.
The grain was evenly selected, and the connection between the top and legs was stable.
At times like this, he felt the worth of his design major.
Instead of just calling it pretty, he could see where and how care had been taken.
An admiring sigh escaped him before he knew it.
“You made it well. Really well…”
Cha Jeong-won started to lift one corner of his mouth very slightly, then stopped. He seemed to want to probe Haon’s reaction further, but ultimately ended his sentence as if letting it go.
“It was bothering me, sitting in a corner of the workshop.”
“Bothering you?”
“Kept tripping over it.”
What a typical Cha Jeong-won excuse, Haon thought to himself.
Haon blinked unnecessarily and asked again.
“But… can I take this home?”
The place Haon was staying now wasn’t here.
It was a bedside table made for when I was staying in this room, but that time has already passed. Still, I can’t just leave it here, can I?
Cha Jeong-won shook his head.
“Don’t think about taking the bedside table. Think of something else.”
“Something else?”
“You fill in the rest yourself.”
Haon fell silent for a moment. He didn’t immediately understand what that meant.
The senior makes the bedside table, and I fill in the rest.
The words felt unreal. Cha Jeong-won added one more sentence as if it were nothing.
“I said this space is yours, didn’t I? So finish decorating it.”
Haon took a breath in, then slowly let it out.
He was on the verge of feeling so openly moved that it was embarrassing.
To think he’d set aside a space for someone he’d broken up with.
“I really like it… I feel bad just leaving it…”
It felt like a gift from Cha Jeong-won, and he wanted to hug it tight.
But he couldn’t stay in this room either. Still, wanting to take it somehow, he opened his mouth, then closed it again at a thought that flashed through his mind.
Unconsciously, he turned his head.
It was toward the side where Cha Jeong-won’s room was.
Remembering there was a box under the bed, the words vanished on their own.
In the past, just thinking about the existence of that box made his body shrink.
Afraid of getting more deeply entangled in the senior’s misfortune. Afraid that touching it carelessly would lead to more complications.
But after his thoughts changed, he felt like he should stick close to Cha Jeong-won.
They were already tangled once, already fallen once, already had a bandage on the back of his hand.
He didn’t have the courage to ask to get back together after breaking up, but he wanted to secretly hold onto the pretext of coming over to decorate the room.
Not wanting to lose that pretext, Haon took one more step closer.
He grabbed Cha Jeong-won’s arm as if brushing against it, then clung to it as if hanging on. Lightly. Very lightly, so it wouldn’t be too obvious and embarrassing.
But it was hard to think lightly when he couldn’t control his expression at Cha Jeong-won’s body heat.
“Then… can I come often?”
Cha Jeong-won’s gaze dropped to Haon’s hand for a moment, then rose.
“Yeah, come and decorate.”
“I’ll need materials too.”
“They’re in the workshop.”
“And I’ll need to check the layout.”
“Check.”
All the answers were clear. Haon grew more and more excited.
If he’s allowing it to this extent, maybe I can do more.
Haon kept adding words while naturally moving another hand’s breadth closer to Cha Jeong-won.
A distance where their shoulders might touch, or might not. A distance where their breaths might mix, or might not.
“What about touching?”
Cha Jeong-won’s eyebrow twitched.
His face seemed to ask why he needed separate permission when he was already clinging, if it was really necessary.
But Haon deliberately gestured with his chin toward the bedside table.
“This. Can I touch it?”
He asked belatedly, even though he’d already touched it.
Yoon Haon, he knew it himself. That’s why it was even more infuriating.
Cha Jeong-won narrowed his eyes slightly.
He probably knew better than anyone the expression Haon made when he started acting willful.
Cha Jeong-won firmly grabbed Haon’s shoulder. Instead of pulling him into an affectionate hug, he turned him around.
“My business here is done.”
“Huh?”
While Haon was flustered, Cha Jeong-won pushed him all the way to the front door. The expression ‘pushed out’ fit perfectly.
Haon tried to resist, digging his heels into the floor. But he couldn’t overcome Cha Jeong-won’s strength.
“Why are you kicking me out? Is showing me that one thing all?”
Haon raised his voice, pretending to be wronged.
“At least make me some ramyeon or something!”
Cha Jeong-won’s hand stopped for a moment. A very brief silence.
Haon thought that gap was an opportunity and resisted more. But Cha Jeong-won became more resolute than before.
“Thinking again, it won’t do. You’re too dangerous.”
“Why am I dangerous?”
The moment Haon tried to turn his head, Cha Jeong-won cut him off in a low voice.
“You leaked pheromones when you came into the house earlier.”
At those words, Haon’s body froze completely. No sound came out, as if his breath was caught in his throat. The fact that he hadn’t been aware of it was even more embarrassing.
Belatedly, Haon ran his fingertips over the back of his own neck. He tried to act nonchalant, but his hand trembled ever so slightly. The heated skin touched his fingertips first.
Cha Jeong-won pushed Haon’s back right up to the front door, then stopped there.
“Go, before I become dangerous too.”
Haon’s lips twitched. He didn’t know what to say.
I’m not dangerous. No, I am dangerous.
Both were sincere, so words failed him even more. In the end, Haon looked up at Cha Jeong-won with a wronged expression.
“Then… you’ll be here when I come to decorate, right?”
Instead of answering, Cha Jeong-won placed his hand on the doorknob. It was simply an action to open the door for him, but strangely, it felt considerate, making Haon’s heart waver even more.
“Then you control it.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You.”
Cha Jeong-won remained composed to the very end.
Haon thought that composed attitude was even more cruel as he was pushed out into the hallway.
Watching the door close before his eyes, Haon hurriedly stuck his hand in.
Thanks to Cha Jeong-won grabbing the door before it hit, he wasn’t hurt, but it was close.
“Yoon Haon, I don’t like these kinds of jokes.”
As someone who got hurt often anyway, Cha Jeong-won couldn’t help but be sensitive.
“I’m fine, really. More importantly, I’ll call, so answer.”
Instead of answering, Cha Jeong-won pressed his lips together firmly. Then the door closed.
Click.
Left alone in the hallway, Haon stood blankly for a long while before finally letting out a long sigh.
His heart was beating strangely fast. Embarrassment rose first, followed by warmth.
One bedside table. The person who dragged me in here to show me that.
—’You fill in the rest yourself.’
Those words kept echoing in his head.
A space that was his, that hadn’t disappeared like a mirage.
Haon looked at the door once more, then lowered his head. He tried to compose himself, but somehow the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
If I keep doing this, I’ll like that person even more…
“Ah…”
What was I thinking?
76 – NOT 76