Min-jae was fine. Totally fine.
He was not staring at Si-won's neck during the morning shift at Brewmates™. He was not watching the Omega flip his hair while laughing at Yuri's memes. And he was definitely not adjusting his hoodie like it was hiding guilt.
It was just the pheromones. That was all.
They were stronger now. Sticky-sweet, faintly creamy, and completely intoxicating. Like warm strawberry milk left out in the sun to ferment into something sinful. Min-jae burned his tongue on a Cinnamon Americano and choked.
"Are you dying?" Si-won asked sweetly, glitter gloss already refilled.
"No."
"You look like your soul left your body."
"I'm fine."
"You're sweating."
"I said I'm fine."
Si-won smirked and leaned closer across the counter. His voice dropped.
"Still thinking about the closet?"
Min-jae dropped the headphones.
Yuri shrieked with laughter from the end of the bar.
Hyun clapped once, like it was a performance. "Give him some ice. His whole species just rebooted."
Min-jae fled to the back freezer. Si-won followed, not to apologize, but to pose in front of the milk shelves like it was a photoshoot and he was sponsored by chaos.
After their shift, the team walked to the campus dance studio for rehearsal footage review. Brewmates™ was sponsoring a student campaign, and Min-jae and Si-won had volunteered to be the bonded couple representatives. It was supposed to be symbolic. Harmless. Slightly cringe.
Except now, everyone was treating them like actual mates. Including Si-won. Especially Si-won.
He changed into dancewear with zero hesitation. Cropped hoodie. High-slit track pants. Glossy lips. Pink diffuser set to wild strawberry. Min-jae stared at the wall.
Si-won dropped into a split. Min-jae blinked.
"Need help stretching?" Si-won purred, back arching like a warning.
Min-jae made a strange noise and left the room. Backstage, Nari held her phone inches from Min-jae's face.
"Do you want to explain this?"
"What."
"This timestamp," she said, scrubbing the video back. "You sniffed him. On camera."
"I did not."
"You leaned in. Your pupils dilated. You went feral for one full frame."
"It was the light."
"It was the pheromones."
"It was a coincidence."
Nari paused. "Do you like him?"
Min-jae didn't answer.
Nari gasped. "You do."
"I do not."
"Say it."
"No."
"I will make it my mission to get him to sit on your lap again."
Min-jae's ears turned red.
"I'm going to vomit," he said.
Nari took that as a yes.
Meanwhile, Si-won was experiencing a totally different crisis. He sat in the studio lobby, staring at his phone. His follower count had passed 100,000 overnight.
He should have been thrilled. He should have been posting selfies and thank-you stories and cheeky captions like "who knew foam could ruin and revive my life?"
But instead, he was sitting in a too-small chair, biting his thumbnail and thinking about how the last time he trended, it was for a stolen dance cover. That had cost him two casting calls and a not-quite sugar daddy with a G-class Mercedes. Now, it was happening again. This time with feelings. That was the problem.
Min-jae wasn't supposed to make him feel anything. Not shame. Not softness. Not this weird warm ache behind his ribs every time their hands brushed or their eyes met for too long. He scrolled through the tag again.
#CinnaMilk was trending.
And under the newest post, a blurry snap of the dance studio, someone had commented:
"You can tell he's bonded. Look at how he looks at him."
Si-won stared at the photo for a long time.
Then quietly turned off his phone.
Nari, still holding her iced americano like it was a truth serum, narrowed her eyes.
"Okay but like," she whispered to Yuri, "have you seen Min-jae's stuff?"
"What stuff."
"His water bottle is one of those custom-coded thermal designs. And his earphones? Not student issue. They have noise-dampening auto-pair AI. That's prototype tier."
Yuri blinked. "I just thought he was really into gadgets."
"No," Nari said, eye twitching. "He's stealth rich. This is how it starts. Next he'll show up in limited-release sneakers and say they were on sale."
"He wears the same hoodie every day."
"Exactly. That's rich person camouflage."
Yuri gasped. "So like soft launch trust fund."
Nari nodded gravely. "He's a ghost donor. A sugar baby in denial. A tech prince in beta."
"Should we tell Si-won?"
"Absolutely not. That would ruin the game."
Back inside the studio, Si-won was fanning himself with a copy of the campaign schedule and pretending not to smell Min-jae five meters away. It was impossible. Cinnamon and code. His natural disaster.
Min-jae leaned against the mirror, jaw clenched, hoodie sleeves shoved up, eyes flicking toward Si-won every few seconds like he couldn't help it. It wasn't bonding. Definitely not. Just mutual dysfunction and hormone overload. Still, when their hands brushed during the couple's choreography run-through, Si-won flinched. Min-jae did not. Min-jae held his hand. Firmly. Their eyes locked.
The instructor yelled, "Try again with less weird eye contact."
They did not stop.
Later that evening, Si-won posted an untagged, black-and-white story of his hand on a dance floor.
The caption read:
"No one tells you it's going to feel like this."
Nari replied instantly:
"Tell me you're not falling for the hoodie."
Si-won didn't answer.
Instead, he reopened the rehearsal footage. Paused on the moment Min-jae laced their fingers together and didn't let go. Pressed play again.
Then watched it twice more, just to be sure.