Chapter 30: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Unforeseen Turns

How did I even get home?

Lying on the bed without even changing, I stared blankly at the ceiling. It felt strange, almost foreign, to be back home after what couldn’t have been that long.

“The alcohol has completely worn off,” I muttered.

Normally, I would have passed out immediately, but for some reason, sleep eluded me despite lying there for ages. If anything, my mind felt sharper.

Although sleep wouldn’t come, I wasn’t completely immobile. As I shifted my body to the other side, a shopping bag on the table caught my eye.

When I’d put those items in, I hadn’t thought anything of it.

‘It was heavy, wasn’t it?’

Only when it was time to part did I finally receive it and truly feel its weight.

Until then, Kang Hae-il had carried it for me.

Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t often carried heavy things even during the entire retreat.

“I… I completely freeloaded,” I murmured.

Recalling how I used to readily accept help whenever someone offered, I took a moment for self-reflection.

It felt as though I had received so much kindness from others, yet hadn’t given back nearly enough.

‘Next time, I’ll do better.’

Lost in various thoughts, I glanced at the clock and realized it was already past midnight.

I had thought I was maintaining a healthy routine, but it felt as if I had reverted to my old habits.

As I pushed myself up from the bed, my head spun, making me dizzy for a moment. Once the sensation passed, I picked up the shopping bag from the table and headed to the kitchen.

The desserts Kang Hae-il had bought for me.

‘We went to a dessert cafe together twice.’

Taking everything out and tidying up, I recalled the dessert cafes I had visited with Kang Hae-il on both the first and last days.

Our clothes were different, the situations were different.

Despite the many differences, it suddenly struck me how much closer we had become in such a short time.

“Come to think of it… the cards seemed similar,” I mused aloud.

Recalling Kang Hae-il stopping me from paying today and presenting his card, I realized it looked familiar, as if I’d seen it somewhere before.

It was like the card the production team had given us on the first day.

They both were simply black with no prominent images, which probably made them seem similar. However, today’s purchase was surely out of his own pocket.

‘Must be the same bank, then.’

More important than that, however, was the immediate need to wash up. I wished someone could just bathe me.

Normally, I would have procrastinated longer before showering, but the makeup on my face felt suffocating, so I headed to the bathroom relatively quickly.

After washing, my body felt heavy with fatigue. Without even drying my hair, I simply dove into bed.

“I need to turn off my alarm.”

There was no need to wake up early tomorrow.

I quickly scanned the numerous other notifications that had piled up, then turned off my phone.

The room was silent.

Being alone had always been familiar, but after a brief period of group living, the solitude felt somewhat hollow. Yet, at the same time, it was also comforting.

The reality that I couldn’t even send a “Did you get home safely?” message, despite all the laughter, chatter, and shared moments, truly sank in.

Lying in bed, sleep began to gently overtake me once more, and I closed my eyes.

The past three days, spent with unfamiliar faces, felt like nothing more than a midsummer night’s dream.

A peculiar sensation washed over Lee Dohwa when he saw displayed on the main banner of the Utopia platform.

They had all watched episode 0 together on the first night of their stay, but in the chaos, he had missed many details.

As Dohwa attempted to rewatch it with a light heart, his expression crumpled beyond words.

“Oh, please, no…”

Although he had seen it once before, focusing solely on himself during the second viewing made his resistance quickly falter.

His accidental encounter with Kang Hae-il in the cafe must have been fleeting, yet with the power of editing—from slow motion to scene transitions—a simple staff mistake was dramatized into a scene from a television series.

To make matters worse, the reactions of the panelists, which he hadn’t seen before, were included, overwhelming him to the point of daze.

[The protagonist always appears last! Dohwa is quite likable, isn’t he? He sat next to Hae-il again this time.]

It would have been amusing if he weren’t the one involved.

The crumpled blanket, tightly clutched in his hands, spoke volumes of his feelings.

[Turns out this is incredibly entertaining.]

Dohwa’s quiet eating was often captured by the camera, but the climax came shortly after, when he stood up and all eyes turned to him.

It seemed like he got up too quickly, perhaps due to the editing.

‘I should have just stayed seated.’

Regretting it now was useless; it was already too late.

Fortunately, perhaps because he had risen early, his screen time diminished, and the focus shifted to the remaining participants, allowing him to watch more comfortably.

Only after being thoroughly drained did he realize that watching himself on screen was no ordinary feat.

“Now, I should reply…”

The messages he had been putting off.

He hadn’t changed his phone number long ago, so few people should have it, yet everyone who did seemed to have contacted him. He had only replied to a few of them.

[To the Manager:/]

He spent about an hour holding his phone, replying to messages, and catching up on all his pending work.

Casually, he searched for on a portal site and found a few related blogs and articles.

[Third-Generation Chaebol Appears on Dating Show!]

[ Participant Ranks #1 in Buzz, Who is the Dominant Omega?]

[Controversy Surrounds Broadcast Appearance… Geumgang Group Remains Silent]

Drawn in by the clickbait, he found most of the content was about Kang Hae-il. He also checked out a blog that claimed to reveal the participants’ professions.

“A designer, an accountant… they have everything,” he mused.

Chaeyeon-woo, Ma Won-ho, and Kang Hae-il’s professions were correct, but the other three varied wildly.

He then delved deeper, looking at posts with their past photos and news article images.

‘They were just babies then.’

He discovered a video of what appeared to be a kindergarten-aged Ma Won-ho throwing a tantrum, demanding to watch Ma Seong-un’s R-rated movie, and he liked the video.

He stayed up all night, meticulously gathering only confirmed information about the other participants.

“Is Chaeyeon-woo a dominant omega too?”

Seeing how confidently people identified Chaeyeon-woo as a dominant omega, it suddenly occurred to him that they might share the same designation.

“I got a reply from the author today!”

“Congratulations! You’ve been waiting for ages, and now you’ve finally heard back.”

“They were probably busy filming,” Song Yumin replied.

Song Yumin, the publishing house manager who had been checking daily for the ‘1’ to disappear, packed a book sample for Dohwa into a delivery box, a bright smile gracing her face.

The book had turned out perfectly, exactly as planned, with seemingly no need for revisions this time. This filled her with a subtle sense of pride.

Knowing that Dohwa’s appearance on the program was thanks to her made her shoulders puff out a little more.

“I never thought he’d appear on a broadcast, but you really never know with people. Will there be a fan signing now?”

“He… he might,” Yumin conceded.

“Yumin, make sure you manage him well.”

She forced herself to nod at her superior’s subtly prodding words.

From the publishing house’s perspective, having believed they had a firm grasp on the author’s personality for the past three years, Dohwa’s actions were entirely unexpected.

Personally, now that things had turned out this way, she hoped he would hold more fan signings and even open an SNS account.

Even without being asked to watch, the publishing house employees had all binged Dohwa’s program on YouTube over the weekend, and now they were pestering Yumin all day long.

Although his identity as an author hadn’t been revealed yet, the immediate boost in sales suggested that numbers would only climb higher over time.

The signs were auspicious; to fully leverage this free marketing, the publishing house poured extra attention into the upcoming new release. They even held urgent meetings to adjust the release schedule.

“Author Dohwa, who do you think he’ll end up with?”

It was a frequent topic among close colleagues during lunch, but…

“From what’s been shown, it looks like he’ll be linked with Kang Hae-il. But the competition seems fierce.”

“The Geumgang Group is indeed quite powerful.”

Watching the two casually converse, Yumin’s expression hardened, and she declared resolutely:

“As his manager, my gut feeling says it’s definitely Ma Won-ho.”

Regardless of professions or anything else, Yumin, having already decided Dohwa’s partner based purely on visual chemistry and her consistent preferences, had set three alarms to ensure she wouldn’t miss the live broadcast.