Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
KEIRA
I couldn't stop touching my wrist. It had been hours since Hwan had pressed his scent into my skin, but I kept catching myself running my fingers over the spot where his lips had brushed my pulse.
The smell of sunshine and vanilla clung to me like a second skin, and every time I breathed it in, something warm bloomed in my chest.
The bond hummed contentedly, settled in a way it hadn't been since it first triggered.
Like a cat that had finally found a patch of sunlight to curl up in.
I was curled up on the couch with a book I wasn't really reading when Hwan's phone buzzed again.
He glanced at the screen, and I watched his expression shift — that subtle tightening around his eyes that I was starting to recognize as his "work face. "
"V-Live in twenty minutes." He announced it to the room as he pushed himself up from where he'd been sprawled on the other end of the couch, his body shifting from relaxed to alert in an instant. "Manager says the fans have been asking. Can't push it again."
"You pushed it once already?" I lowered my book, curiosity pulling my attention fully away from the pages I hadn't been absorbing anyway.
"Twice, actually." Min-jun called out from the kitchen, where he was doing something that smelled like garlic and ginger, his voice carrying warmth and gentle teasing. "He was supposed to go live yesterday, but someone was too busy hovering outside the nest room."
"I wasn't hovering." Hwan's ears went pink as he protested, the flush creeping down to his neck in a way that made him look younger, more vulnerable. "I was... strategically positioned."
"You were hovering." Tae-min said it without looking up from his game, his thumbs still moving across the controller even as his lips twitched into a smirk. "We all were. But you were the most obvious about it."
"At least I wasn't fake-walking past the door every five minutes pretending to need something from the kitchen." Hwan shot back, crossing his arms with mock indignation, one eyebrow raised in challenge.
"I was hungry." Tae-min's ears turned red, betraying him even as his voice stayed deliberately casual. "Multiple times. It happens."
"You walked past seventeen times in two hours." Jin-ho spoke from the armchair in the corner, his pen still moving across the notebook in his lap, not bothering to look up. "I counted."
"Why were you counting?" Tae-min finally paused his game and twisted around to stare at Jin-ho, accusation written across his features.
"Because I was also watching the door." Jin-ho said it matter-of-factly, finally lifting his gaze to meet Tae-min's with calm certainty. "And I needed something to do besides worry."
I felt heat creep into my own cheeks at the image — all five of them taking turns hovering outside my door, counting each other's passes, too worried to stay away but too respectful to barge in. The thought of them watching over me like that, postponing schedules and losing sleep...
"You should have done your schedule." I tried to sound stern, but it came out softer than I intended, betraying the warmth spreading through my chest.
"I should have done a lot of things." Hwan was already heading toward his room, probably to change into something more camera-ready, his voice floating back to me as he walked down the hallway. "But I wanted to be here more."
He disappeared around the corner before I could respond.
"He really was the worst." Tae-min had turned back to his game, but his voice carried fondness beneath the teasing, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Kept asking Min-jun-hyung to make soup in case you woke up hungry. We have like six containers of soup in the fridge now."
"Seven." Min-jun corrected from the kitchen, and I could hear the smile in his voice even without seeing his face. "I made another batch this morning."
"You're all ridiculous." I said it quietly, shaking my head even as warmth spread through my chest, something tight loosening behind my ribs.
"We prefer 'devoted.'" Jae-won's voice came from behind me, and I turned to find him standing in the doorway to the hallway, his dark eyes soft as he watched the exchange, arms crossed loosely over his chest. "Or 'appropriately concerned.' Ridiculous works too, though."
Twenty minutes later, I found myself hovering in the doorway of Hwan's room, watching him set up his phone on a small tripod.
He'd changed into a soft cream sweater that made his copper hair look even warmer, and he'd done something to his face — not quite makeup, but something that made his skin glow under the ring light he'd positioned on his desk.
"You can come in." He caught my reflection in his phone screen and smiled, the expression easy and inviting as he gestured toward the room with one hand. "I don't bite. Well, not during V-Lives anyway."
"Should I be worried about after?" I stepped inside, raising an eyebrow at him as I leaned against the doorframe.
"Terrified." He grinned at me, but it softened into something more genuine as he watched me take in his space, his eyes tracking my reaction. "This is me. Messy room and all."
The room was smaller than I expected — idol dorms weren't exactly spacious, even for successful groups — but distinctly his. Posters of dancers on the walls. A shelf crammed with trophies and albums. A well-worn stuffed dog on his bed that looked like it had been loved since childhood.
"Who's this?" I crossed to the bed and picked up the stuffed dog carefully, running my fingers over its worn fur, feeling the years of love embedded in its threadbare patches.
"That's Biscuit." Hwan's voice went soft, almost shy, and I watched him duck his head slightly as color crept into his cheeks.
"I've had him since I was six. He's been through every audition, every competition, every debut stage.
" He paused, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
"The others don't know I still sleep with him sometimes. So. You know. State secret."
"Your secret's safe with me." I set Biscuit back against the pillows gently, something tender aching in my chest at the image of Hwan — bright, confident Hwan — curling up with a childhood stuffed animal when the pressure got too heavy.
"Where should I...?" I gestured vaguely at the room, not sure where to position myself to stay out of the way during his broadcast.
"Anywhere out of frame." He pointed to a spot near his closet, his movements efficient and practiced from years of doing exactly this.
"The camera only catches from here to here.
You can watch, but they won't see you." He paused, something vulnerable flickering across his face as his hand dropped to his side.
"Unless you'd rather go? I know this is weird, watching me perform for strangers while you're standing right there. "
"No, I want to watch." The words came out before I could second-guess them, surprising us both with their certainty. "I want to see."
Something in his expression softened, the tension around his eyes easing just slightly as he nodded. "Okay. Just... don't judge me too hard. V-Lives are weird. I have to be... you know. On."
I settled into the spot he'd indicated, leaning against the wall with my arms crossed. From this angle, I could see both Hwan and his phone screen, which meant I'd be able to watch him and the comments at the same time.
He took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders, and tapped the screen.
The transformation was instantaneous.
One second he was Hwan — the real Hwan, the one who'd held me while we danced and confessed that being the sunshine was exhausting.
The next second, his spine straightened, his smile widened, and his eyes lit up with that megawatt brightness I'd seen in every interview, every performance, every carefully curated social media post.
"My Soul! Hello!" His voice came out higher, more energetic, practically sparkling as he waved at the camera with both hands, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet.
I smiled hearing the name of what he calls the fanbase.
Soul… it was something I always found cute.
"It's Hwan! Did you miss me? I missed you! "
Comments flooded the screen in Korean and English and a dozen other languages I couldn't read. Hearts cascaded down the side of the frame. The viewer count climbed rapidly — ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand.
Fifty thousand people, all watching him smile.
I studied his face as he chattered about his day (carefully edited to remove any mention of me), about the weather, about a new restaurant Min-jun had found.
He laughed at comments, made exaggerated expressions, did a little dance when someone requested his favorite part of their latest choreography.
He was good at this. Really good. If I hadn't spent the afternoon watching the mask slip, I never would have known it was a mask at all.
I had watched. And now I could see the seams. The way his smile sometimes flickered a millisecond too long.
The slight tension in his shoulders that he hid with animated gestures.
The careful way he chose his words, always bright, always positive, never anything that could be clipped and taken out of context.
No clouds allowed.
His own words echoed in my head as I watched him perform for fifty thousand strangers.
This was what he meant. This was the weight he carried every single day — the pressure to be bright on command, to manufacture joy for consumption, to never let them see him tired or sad or anything less than sunshine personified.
"Ah, everyone's asking why I look so happy today!" Hwan was reading comments, his manufactured smile widening even further as he tilted his head with practiced charm, one finger tapping his chin playfully. "Do I look different? Really? Hmm, I wonder why..."