Min-jae didn't sleep.
Not because he didn't try. He turned off the lights. He fluffed his pillow. He even opened his coding terminal to simulate normalcy. But every time he blinked, he saw foam. Glitter. Knees. Every time he shifted in bed, his body remembered Si-won's lips.
He groaned softly and pulled the blanket over his face. The scent of strawberry milk was still there, clinging to the fibers like trauma. He was ruined. Corrupted. His laptop sat open beside him with a half-written query for "how to uninstall pheromonal shame."
His phone buzzed violently under the sheets. He didn't check it. Because he already knew. The group chat had woken up.
Si-won, meanwhile, was glowing.
He sat on his dorm bed, bunny slippers crossed at the ankles, skin radiant and glazed from a 10-step routine. His pink hair was clipped back with sparkly duckbill pins. A sheet mask clung to his cheeks like gossip. He sipped a detoxifying aloe bubble tea and hummed while scrolling through the chaos he had wrought.
Group Chat: Brewmates™ Shift Demons
Nari: I am making a PowerPoint
Nari: Title slide says "Hoodie Crimes and Caffeinated Lies"
Yuri: THIS IS WHY THE FOAM FILTER SMELLED LIKE DEATH
Hyun: did he cry
Nari: he moaned
Yuri: is that better or worse
Nari: it was loud
Si-won chuckled and took a selfie in Min-jae's hoodie.
He did not tag Min-jae.
But he did send it to the group chat with no caption, just a single 🫢 emoji
At the exact same moment, Min-jae was brushing his teeth with more force than necessary, muttering equations in his head like they were protection spells. He checked his phone. Regretted it instantly.
Si-won [Photo Attachment]
🫢
He turned off notifications. Then turned them back on again. Then turned them off louder.
By 10 a.m., both of them ended up back at Brewmates™. Si-won arrived first, as always. He wore lip gloss and righteousness. The café was unusually quiet except for the buzz of gossip and the clack of Yuri's phone keyboard.
Hyun raised an eyebrow as Si-won floated past.
"Morning, sunbae. Closet survivor."
Si-won winked. "Barely."
Yuri handed him a fresh Omega Latte, pink foam shaped like a heart. "This one's on the house. Sponsored by Nari's mental health fund."
Si-won sipped it delicately. "Tell her I accept her apology."
"She didn't apologize."
"She should."
Min-jae arrived seven minutes later. His hoodie was zipped to the chin. His eyes were haunted. He approached the counter like a man delivering his own confession. Hyun handed him a Cinnamon Americano.
"You're welcome. And no, we're not deleting the footage."
"I didn't ask," Min-jae said.
"We deleted worse things. Not this."
Min-jae glanced around. Si-won was already in his favorite corner seat, sipping foam like he hadn't broken a man in a storage closet.
Their eyes met.
Si-won smiled. Bit the straw. Sucked slowly. Min-jae exploded inside. He turned away and spilled cinnamon on the counter.
Meanwhile, Nari was on her third iced americano and her second mental breakdown. She was sitting behind the register, pretending to edit a TikTok while secretly analyzing every pixel of Min-jae's outfit. Something felt off. Not just the way he had arrived on foot but somehow still looked like he stepped out of a techwear runway show.
And his laptop?
Nari squinted. That wasn't a student model. That was a luxury dev rig. Custom shell. Premium stickers. Limited drop.
"Hey," she whispered to Yuri. "Do we know how rich he is?"
"Min-jae?"
"Yeah."
"I thought he was broke."
Nari zoomed in on the photo from earlier.
"Then why is he using a 1.7 million won laptop with a startup beta dev environment only accessible by invitation?"
Yuri blinked. "What?"
Nari's eye twitched. "He's rich-coded. I can feel it."
"You said that about Hyun."
"I was wrong about Hyun. He owns two pairs of socks."
Later that shift, Yuri posted a new OmegaTok with dramatic background music and this caption:
"When your crush is sweet but accidentally ruins your career with foam. ☕🍓🔥"
#HoodieBreakdown #CinnaMilkConfirmed #HeSaidPlease
Meanwhile, Si-won scrolled through his notifications with a slight frown. Not because he regretted what happened in the closet. Please. He had technique. He had legacy. If anything, he deserved a plaque. A foam-splattered one.
But still.
He sighed and adjusted the brightness on his phone. His DMs were unhinged. His last three posts had doubled in reach. And someone had already made a fan edit of his glitter-smeared cheek with the caption "Cafe Prince or Pheromone Terrorist?"
He was going viral. Again.
And yet, his casting inbox was quiet. No new auditions. No Idolhouse callbacks. And he hadn't gotten a single wink from a potential sugar daddy since the closet chaos. His brand was shifting. Unfortunately, it was shifting toward messy fandom icon with chaotic pheromones, not high-value Omega with gloss and options.
He bit his straw and sighed. It was the hoodie. It was always the hoodie. And Min-jae.
Because no matter how he spun it, no one was looking at Si-won and thinking: desirable trophy boyfriend material. They were looking and thinking: "that's the unhinged Omega who broke a coding major over biodegradable straws."
He opened his camera app. Angled his chin. Might as well monetize it. Still, a small part of him ached. He used to dream about it, not the foam or the frenzy, but the stage. A lit-up audition room. A callback text. A sugar sponsor waiting in the wings with a Tesla and a contract. Someone who didn't make him feel like his pheromones were always the punchline.
But now?
He was trending. Not cast. Not courted. Just... content.