Chapter 1: An Unwelcome Reunion

<We’ll be back again next week. Thank you to everyone for watching. Today Live!>

With the MC’s cheerful cry, this week’s live broadcast came to a safe conclusion.
Yoonseo rose from his seat, gave the directors in the control room a silent nod with a smile, and only then did he let out a sigh of relief.

“Yoonseo, you really worked hard this week.”

The moment he was leaving the control room, a hand landed on Yoonseo’s shoulder, seemingly nonchalant but gentle.
He didn’t even need to turn his head to know whose hand it was.
It was Team Leader Kim Seungho.

Yoonseo stared blankly at the hand that patted his shoulder a couple of times before pulling away, then quickly broke into a fresh smile.

He might have denied it under normal circumstances, but this week had been genuinely grueling, so he didn’t say a word.
He was finally realizing what his seniors meant when they warned him never to carelessly accept sponsorships from local governments.
Thanks to that, he hadn’t gotten a single wink of sleep while producing this week’s broadcast.

Team Leader Kim, who had patted Yoonseo’s shoulder, chuckled at his unusual reaction.
Then, he subtly asked.

“I’m feeling generous today. Yoonseo, you pick the spot for the team dinner. I’ll buy you whatever you want.”

“Um… I’d like to have some beef, Team Leader.”

When he spoke with a deliberate touch of playfulness, Team Leader Kim responded by dropping his jaw in an exaggerated reaction.
Yoonseo, who let out a soft laugh, turned to glance at Writer Oh Chaewon following behind him.
Since Chaewon, the writer in charge, had suffered just as much as he had, he figured giving her the choice wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“Should we eat what Writer Chaewon wants?”

“Writer Oh will probably ask for something even more expensive… Writer Oh! Anything you want to eat?”

Yoonseo burst out laughing at Team Leader Kim, who scowled in disapproval for a moment before turning to Chaewon with a wide grin as if nothing had happened.
It was then that he casually slipped a hand into the pocket of his hooded jumper.
It wasn’t long after thinking something felt missing that he realized the reason.
His phone was gone.

Team Leader Kim looked at Yoonseo, whose expression had suddenly hardened, and asked quizzically.

“Why?”

“Ah… my phone is missing.”

“Didn’t you leave it in the control room?”

He couldn’t readily agree with Team Leader Kim, because he had no memory of taking his phone out in the control room.

‘When was the last time I checked my phone?’
Yoonseo wracked his memory and recalled talking briefly on the phone with his older brother, Yoonchan, in the editing room before coming over to the control room.

“I think I left it in the editing room.”

“Really? Go get it, then. I’ll tell Youngwoo to get in touch.”

“Yes. I’ll be right back.”

Yoonseo gave Team Leader Kim a slight nod and then hurried toward the emergency stairs.
To get from the East Wing, where the control room and studio were, to the Annex, where the offices were located, he had to use a connecting walkway. Fortunately, he was on the 3rd floor, where the walkway was.

He quickly crossed the hallway and passed through the connecting walkway, finally arriving at the Annex.
From there, he immediately caught an elevator and went straight up to the 9th floor, where the offices were.

After scanning his employee ID and passing through the glass entrance, a long, horizontal corridor appeared.
At the left end of the corridor were the offices and editing rooms of UBS Plus, a subsidiary and outsourced production company of UBS, while the Sports Department was at the right end.

Yoonseo briefly glanced down the corridor toward the Sports Department, then quickly shook his head.
He was bothered by some unwelcome news he’d heard recently.
It was the news that Kim Injun, a PD and a senior Yoonseo found deeply uncomfortable, had joined the Sports Department as an experienced hire.

He had first met Kim Injun while working at a different outsourced production company, right before joining his current program.
At the time, he was the most senior PD aside from the team leader, and to Yoonseo, he was a senior far above him.
There had been much to learn from Kim Injun, who had a reputation for being excellent at his job.

However, one day, less than a week after he had joined, everything changed after he witnessed Kim Injun harassing and hitting on the youngest writer, who was an Omega.

Yoonseo had confronted Kim Injun on behalf of the youngest writer, who was terrified and could do nothing but cry.
He had told him, as politely as he could, that what he was doing was wrong and that he had to stop.
Kim Injun had cleanly admitted his fault to his face, and Yoonseo thought that with that, he had corrected the wrong.
But it wasn’t long before his own daily life was turned upside down.
Kim Injun had discovered his secondary gender and used it as a weakness.

From that day on, Kim Injun started doing to Yoonseo the same things he had done to the youngest writer.
The youngest writer quit as if she were fleeing, and Yoonseo, too, was unable to last even two months there before he was forced to resign.

“Huuu…”

Recalling that time made a sigh escape him automatically.
Fortunately, he hadn’t run into Kim Injun yet, but being in the same building, and on the same floor at that, it was clear they would run into each other sooner or later.

After shaking off the bad thoughts with a deep breath, he walked to the editing room, which was quiet.
The small editing rooms, each about two pyeong in size, were clustered together, four on each side of a narrow corridor.
Today, it seemed everyone had gone home early, as no one was using them.

Yoonseo entered Editing Room 2, the one he always used.
He turned on the light and checked the desk, and thankfully, his familiar phone was sitting there alone.
The moment he let out a sigh of relief and picked it up, the phone vibrated briefly.

[Assistant Director Lee Youngwoo: Seonbaenim¹, they said to come to the Bamboo House.]

It was a message from Youngwoo, the assistant director.
The Bamboo House was a pork belly restaurant not too far from here.
It seemed Team Leader Kim had compromised with Chaewon on pork.

[Okay, I’ll be right there. Thanks!]

After sending the reply, he turned off the light and left the editing room, when a strange chill ran through his body.
Yoonseo hunched his shoulders slightly and looked around.
However, he didn’t sense any threatening presence at all.

‘Am I just tired?’
Yoonseo tilted his head in thought, squeezed and then released his stiff shoulder, and started walking again.

While walking and checking if he had received any other messages, Yoonseo slightly lifted his head at the sound of footsteps coming from somewhere.
The sound wasn’t coming from behind him, but from ahead.

“Well, look who it is.”

A swaggering voice mingled unnaturally with the sound of footsteps tapping irregularly on the corridor floor.
The moment he stopped dead in his tracks and fully raised his gaze to look ahead, Yoonseo’s face went cold.
A familiar face, the man at the center of the unpleasant memory he had recalled just a few minutes ago, was right in front of him.

It was Kim Injun.

“Yoonseo, long time no see? Have you been well?”

Since Yoonseo didn’t step back, the distance between them closed quickly as the other man approached.
Holding his breath, a frozen Yoonseo bit the inside of his cheek, hard.
The man who offered the friendly greeting wore a sly, unpleasant smile that did nothing to hide his ulterior motives.

An unsettling energy began to seep into Yoonseo’s body.
Yoonseo tightened his grip on his phone and gave a slight nod.
The only thought in his mind was to get out of this place as soon as possible.

“…Hello, Seonbaenim.”

He was a man Yoonseo didn’t even want to treat as human, but he had no choice.
After all, he was a senior far above him and someone who could wield considerable influence in this industry where connections were everything.

That was precisely why he had changed jobs to his current program instead of continuing to confront Kim Injun.
For Yoonseo, who had nothing—no flashy connections or backing—it had been the best choice he could make.

Yoonseo stiffened his body, trying his best to avoid eye contact with Kim Injun and not to react to the pheromones he was emitting.
However, he forced the corners of his mouth up so his expression wouldn’t reveal how uncomfortable Kim Injun made him feel.

“I haven’t been well, since I couldn’t see our Yoonseo. But we’ll be seeing each other often now, won’t we? You even had your debut as a main PD in the meantime. How admirable.”

The laugh added at the end sent shivers down his spine.
With slightly unfocused eyes, Kim Injun quickly scanned Yoonseo from head to toe, then reached out to grab his shoulder.
But Yoonseo, unconsciously taking a step back, was a bit faster.
Kim Injun’s hand was left hanging awkwardly in the air.

“What’s this? Acting all distant just because we haven’t seen each other in a while?”

The moment he thought he’d made a mistake, a sarcastic voice grated on Yoonseo’s nerves.
Even the air itself began to feel tense.
The pressure was too intense to be attributed solely to an Alpha’s pheromones.

Feeling a sense of doubt, Yoonseo finally looked him properly in the face.
Kim Injun’s eyes were hazy, like a drunk person’s.
Yoonseo barely managed to swallow in his parched throat and took another step back to put more distance between them.
Kim Injun slowly swept his hair back, a corner of his mouth lifting into a crooked smirk.

“Yoonseo, are you going to keep being like this? I’m starting to get my feelings hurt…”

The voice that came from Kim Injun was slurred and drawn out.
His languid, unfocused eyes, and now the strong pheromones that pricked painfully at his skin.
Everything about him went beyond suspicion to certainty, screaming a warning at Yoonseo.

‘Run away now from this ticking time bomb of a man on the verge of his rut².’

Footnote:

1. Seonbaenim (선배님): A respectful term for a senior colleague or student.

2. Rut: A period of heightened aggression and sexual drive in Alphas.