NUTMEG 26

“Choi Wonoh, isn’t it because of you that Minje couldn’t eat yesterday either? Minje said he was hungry.”

“How can a director feed the actors late-night snacks?”

“Ha. The fans should all know what a little brat this punk is. Why don’t they know this? His nasty personality is written all over his face; he looks like a real jerk.”

“You’re really the first person to say that, Kihwan hyung.”

Then he laughed out loud. He couldn’t even begin to guess where this punk’s funny bone was, that he would burst out laughing at being told he has a bad personality. Ah, right. Besides that, he was a strange guy who often burst out laughing at insults directed at his own father.

“I ate a lot yesterday. Wonoh said collagen was good for me, so I ate three pieces.”

Kihwan, who was slathering peanut butter on his second slice of toast, looked up as if he had heard something he shouldn’t have. The only person who would say something so oblivious to the mood with a straight face was… of course, Cheon Minje. Choi Wonoh was laughing again, as if he found something amusing.

“Minje. Are you going to eat dirt if Choi Wonoh tells you to? Don’t do that. You’ll spoil that brat.”

“It’s not that bad…”

“Is it because the kids eat collagen that their skin gets better by the day? Grandma is so envious of our kids’ skin.”

“Oh! Right, sunbae?! I wasn’t the only one thinking that, was I? Are you guys eating something good behind our backs?”

At that moment, Choi Wonoh and Minje looked at each other. They immediately broke eye contact, and Choi Wonoh grinned.

“We do work out together. They say sweating a lot is good for your skin.”

“It’s summer, and it’s hot as hell. Why would you sweat even more?”

As Kihwan stared with a fed-up expression, Choi Wonoh laughed as if he’d heard something funny. Does the age where you laugh at a rolling leaf include twenty-somethings? Well, laughing is good for your health, so it’s all good, but… why do I feel so weirdly irritated?

Smack, he licked his lips and took a big bite of the two slices of toast, one with strawberry jam and the other with peanut butter, pressed together. Then he began to savor it, chewing slowly.

And he fell into contemplation about the ghostly wet dream that had been troubling him for two weeks. Actually, he’d had the thought that it would be a good idea to pile up salt by his bedside from the first day… For the first few days, he was too busy washing up and sleeping when he got home to remember, and for the next few days… he didn’t put any because he was secretly looking forward to it, since being taken by the ghost felt good.

But the fact that the bastard had now appeared with the face of his first love meant…

“By the way, kids. Did you hear any strange sounds last night?”

“Pardon?”

His thoughts were scattered again by Yeonja sunbae’s words. He was looking at the sunbae’s lovely face, which was tilted as if she were troubled, when he almost spat the toast he was eating right in her face at her next words.

“Well. I woke up for a bit early this morning and came down to the kitchen for a drink of water. And I heard a strange moaning sound. It sounded like a man’s voice…”

“Ah.”

“Cough!“

“Gah! Cough, cough!!“

As if a piece of toast had gone down the wrong pipe, Kihwan coughed and wheezed for a long time, pounding his chest with his large fist. “Oh my, did I say something too strange?” Yeonja sunbae said, gently stroking Kihwan’s back. When he barely managed to lift his reddened eyes, he saw that Minje was also coughing, having choked on his milk.

Choi Wonoh’s hand stroked Minje’s back, then slowly moved down. Then, it stroked an area that could no longer be called his back before lightly embracing his waist and letting go.

Did I see that wrong…?

Minje took the tissue Choi Wonoh had pulled out for him and pressed it firmly against his mouth where milk had dripped. The face visible below the tissue looked redder than strawberry jam.

“Oh dear. My hearing is going, so I might have misheard. Our Director Im is scared of ghost stories, and here I am saying strange things.”

“Don’t worry about it~,” Kihwan said, watching Yeonja sunbae absently as she went to the kitchen to make coffee, and cleared his throat for no reason. Last night, because his first love had appeared in his ghostly wet dream, he seemed to have gotten twice as excited as usual and let out some loud cries.

He thought that since it was a dream, there was no way it would be heard outside, but he had been careless. He was embarrassed to think that the rough moans of a man had echoed through the living room. Ack! I definitely have to pile up salt today.

As Yeonja sunbae had predicted, four slices of toast were far from enough. In the end, they even heated up the leftover pig’s trotters, and after a post-meal coffee, the hearty breakfast was over. Kihwan was about to leave with his laptop and script when he remembered something and went to Minje and Wonoh’s room, knocking, knock, knock, before entering. Inside, Choi Wonoh was alone, on his phone.

“Hey, Choi Wonoh. Can you completely take off the band-aid on your hand later? It has to connect with the scene we shot at the beginning?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I think we can cover the slight scar with makeup.”

Choi Wonoh held up the back of the hand that still bore the scar from that day. After getting the stitches out, he had been wearing just one band-aid, but today he had taken it off. Even for a dominant alpha whose healing abilities were different from others, the wound from that day must have been deep, because dark, dead scars could be seen here and there between the back of his hand and his fingers. Kihwan’s brow furrowed on its own.

Just thinking about Lee Jinki made his blood boil. The rumors the assistant director had gathered after the incident were enough to make his neck stiffen even in his sleep. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Wonoh the whole story about his father, Director Choi Cheowon, being involved, so he had made up a vague excuse, but it was an incident that perfectly showcased the disgusting and dirty underside of the entertainment industry.

So, every time Kihwan saw his wound, it left a bitter taste in his mouth. Being an adult, so pathetic. I should have looked into it more and prevented it beforehand. Although he often joked around, calling him an annoying punk, to Kihwan, Wonoh and Minje were both his equally cute and precious actors.

By the way, there was a rather unpleasant smell coming from inside the room.

“Hey, Choi Wonoh.”

“?”

“You. Even if Minje and sunbae-nim are betas, can’t you be considerate of me? Air the room out, you punk!”

Disgusted by the dominant alpha pheromones he had never had to smell in his life, Kihwan made a gagging motion and slapped Choi Wonoh on the back. For once, Choi Wonoh looked slightly embarrassed.

He even sleeps with Minje every night. What the hell is this punk doing, releasing his pheromones like this?

…?

Something seemed to be on the tip of his tongue, but his thoughts wouldn’t connect smoothly, like a drain clogged with foreign matter. As he stood there, a clear voice came from behind.

“Ah, Director. Are you leaving now? Let’s go together, we’re all ready.”

“Shall we?”

“Our call time isn’t for another hour, hyung.”

“I want to go early to read the script and practice a bit.”

“Alright,” Choi Wonoh said, meekly shouldering his bag. Kihwan looked at Wonoh as if he were seeing something strange. At a glance, it might seem like Minje was being completely dragged around by Choi Wonoh, unable to refuse, but that wasn’t exactly the case. If he had to put it into words, it was mutual?

He had thought it since they first met, but Choi Wonoh was a bit difficult to handle. A hard worker, diligent, a perfectionist, sensitive. It was common for celebrities, but Choi Wonoh had, in addition to that, a wall that was hard to pinpoint. Sometimes, he would forget that Wonoh was much younger than him and even feel intimidated.

But recently, his aura had softened a bit. Minje, too, had gone from whining and watching others’ reactions like a scared puppy to now readily expressing his own opinions and smiling often. Kihwan was inwardly pleased that the two becoming friends seemed to have had a positive impact on both their personalities and the movie.

Hmm?

Kihwan tilted his head again. He had heard someone say before that a sensitive and prickly guy’s aura had softened.

Im Kihwan blankly stopped walking, then quickened his pace again to catch up with the two who were walking far ahead. Walking side by side with exactly one person’s distance between them, the two seemed to be chattering endlessly.

To an outsider, it would look completely normal, but Im Kihwan had a well-developed strange intuition. It meant he wasn’t a movie director for nothing.

Since when did these guys, who used to always have their arms around each other’s shoulders or walk practically stuck together, start being so formal and walking apart? It wasn’t like they had fought, either; their relationship actually seemed better than before. Even now, though they were walking apart, the atmosphere was… something. What should I call it? Right, just this morning, Choi Wonoh was patting Minje’s back and then his waist…

Just then, as if a clogged drain had suddenly been cleared, his thoughts connected. The words he had heard earlier were definitely what people used to say about his first love when he and she were secretly dating.

Im Kihwan squeezed himself into the space between them and slung his thick arms over both their shoulders, thud. The two, pinned tightly under the armpits of Kihwan, who was over 190 centimeters tall, looked at him with bewildered expressions.

“Hey. Are you guys secretly dating behind my back?”

He got straight to the point. Kihwan, then and now, wasn’t good at beating around the bush. The two pinned under his arms simultaneously made incredulous faces.

“Wonoh and me?”

Minje, pinned under his left armpit, furrowed his brow and spoke as if the idea were absurd.

“Hyung. I’m not gay.”

Choi Wonoh, pinned under his right armpit, also said calmly with his annoyingly handsome face.

“Minje hyung isn’t either. Right?”

“Yeah.”

Minje nodded. Hmm. Choi Wonoh aside, Minje wasn’t one to be this skilled at controlling his expression. Did I guess wrong?

“Is that so?”

Smack, he licked his lips, let go of their shoulders, and ruffled both their heads at the same time. “Ah, come on! I told you not to touch my hair!” Kihwan was too busy bickering playfully with the protesting Wonoh to notice Minje’s reddened ears.

3.

The typhoon passed, and the sweltering heat began in earnest.

It was more bearable when they were filming on a set, but on days like today with outdoor shoots, it was pure hell for Minje, who was sensitive to the heat.

Minje was listlessly sprawled out under a temporary tent set up to block the sun. Even just sitting still, beads of sweat formed on his nose. A portable air cooler and a handheld fan were running at full blast, but of course, it was no comparison to being in an air-conditioned building.

“What’s your type, hyung?”

“What type?”

Wonoh didn’t seem to be very hot and had been passing the boring waiting time by playing a game on his phone. It was some kind of team shooting game; he had installed the app when Wonoh asked him to play together, but Minje had died a long time ago, and Wonoh was now navigating the map alone.

He didn’t usually play mobile games, but it seemed the stress from preparing for the next album and filming the movie simultaneously was considerable.

“Women.”

Minje pretended to be lost in thought, holding the handheld fan right in front of his nose. His ideal type of woman. In his past life, there was an answer he would mechanically spit out when asked a similar question, so Minje used the same answer this time.

“Just, you know. The innocent type? With long hair.”

“Innocent? That doesn’t suit you, hyung.”

I don’t think you’d be satisfied. Saying that much, Wonoh lifted his head and smiled, his almond-shaped eyes crinkling. Minje avoided his gaze and bit his lower lip.

For the past few days, Choi Wonoh had been like this.

“But hyung, have you ever done it with a woman?”

“…”

His tone was slow, as if he were searching for something. And he didn’t even try to hide it. Rather, it was as if he didn’t care if he knew. Minje let out a faint sigh.

Several weeks had already passed since he and Wonoh had entered this strange relationship. He didn’t sleep at the shared house often, but on the days he did, they would inevitably have sex. What did they call this kind of thing? Right, friends with benefits.

Minje had no particular complaints. He was even surprised that he could be his ‘benefit’ in this way. That morning, when he woke up, he had thought Wonoh would surely hate and despise him. He couldn’t make any excuses even if Wonoh thought of him as a promiscuous guy who wanted to sleep with anyone when drunk. But unexpectedly, Wonoh didn’t seem very upset.

And judging from the various things he said afterward.

…It was embarrassing to say, but Wonoh seemed to be satisfied with their sex.

What was that saying about a blind cow stumbling upon a frog? He was dazed by the unexpected reaction for a moment, but he quickly adapted to the situation. He had received so much from him. So he had always wanted to repay him somehow, to be a source of strength for him, but compared to him who had everything, he, who had nothing, had nothing to give. But unexpectedly, he found something he could give.