XX | Chapter 1.6

Finding his pockets empty, he turned his head to look around the seat. He spotted his phone rolling around on the backseat floor. Picking it up, he unlocked the screen and saw a slew of notifications.

“What the heck?”

Twenty missed calls and fifteen text messages?

Before he could grasp the situation, his phone rang loudly. It was a call from Pilgyu.

“Hello…”

—Hyung! What have you been doing that you haven’t answered your phone! Where are you?

As soon as he answered, Pilgyu’s voice boomed through the phone. He went on about how he had gone home because of the schedule, but Sooha hadn’t returned, how he had called and texted repeatedly with no response, how worried he was that the schedule might be missed, and how he needed to get to the shop immediately or he’d be late, and so on.

It was a complete uproar.

Sooha held the phone away for a moment, then put it back to his ear at the mention of the schedule.

“Schedule? What schedule?”

—Ah, seriously! I told you there’s a private party at Cheonha Hotel today!

“…Oh, right. Yeah, I remember.”

…Not really. He had completely forgotten.

Sooha pretended to be calm, saying he’d head to the shop now and see him there. Then a disgruntled voice came through the receiver.

—What? You’re not coming home? Hyung, don’t tell me… you stayed out overnight? Yikes.

Just when he thought he had smoothed things over, this meticulous manager never let things slide easily. With the threat of a second round of nagging looming, Sooha used the excuse of being in the middle of driving and quickly ended the call.

“Haa…”

I guess I have to go, right?

Slumped in the driver’s seat, Sooha let out a long sigh. He had already had an unfortunate incident at a hotel (albeit a different one), and the thought of going to another hotel made him uneasy and reluctant.

But there was no room for hesitation; the answer had to be yes. Otherwise, not only would his nagging manager be a problem, but Cheon Yua, who was hosting today’s event, wouldn’t let him off the hook.

“Ha, my fate.”

Sooha turned the steering wheel with his body still aching from the night’s ordeal.

✮⋆˙

Without a moment to recover from the shock of having his back taken for the first time in his life, Sooha endured Pilgyu’s nagging throughout his hair and makeup session.

“Pilgyu, hyung is tired…”

He tried to appeal, but instead, he got nitpicked about what he had done to be tired, so he shut his mouth.

His body still ached from muscle pain. His nipples reacted every time his clothes brushed against them, so he couldn’t stand it and secretly asked a staff member to get him some band-aids.

Pilgyu, who caught on like a hawk, rushed over, asking if he was hurt.

“Ah, I said it’s nothing!”

As Sooha tried to escape to the dressing room with his clothes, Pilgyu became even more persistent.

“Why the dressing room? You usually don’t even lift a finger and leave changing clothes to the coordinators! Hyung, you’re acting really suspicious today!”

“Are you crazy? What’s wrong with you today! Let go!”

Sooha was taken aback by Pilgyu’s dogged behavior.

The two grown men bickered for a while in front of the dressing room.

“Ugh, is he crazy…”

Finally managing to shake off Pilgyu and enter the dressing room, Sooha caught his breath and clicked his tongue.

When he first joined, his nervous demeanor, which didn’t match his size, made him seem like a cute little lackey, but now he was like a Cerberus with greatly increased combat power.

No, in terms of appearance, he was more like a grizzly bear. A very large one.

His manager boasted a physique as large as any well-known alpha, but fortunately, his trait was beta.

Despite his rough appearance, reminiscent of a thug who should be in the ring, he had a gentle soul.

If Pilgyu decided to come at him, even Sooha couldn’t guarantee the outcome.

“Whew.”

Why would I insist on changing in the dressing room? It’s not like I’m advertising ‘I got eaten.’

Desperately holding onto his T-shirt, he quickly took it off, revealing the red marks he had seen in the morning.

The incident he had momentarily forgotten due to Pilgyu came rushing back.

Standing close to the mirror, Sooha applied band-aids in an X shape over his nipples.

He bit his lower lip hard to prevent any moans from escaping, exhausting himself before even moving to the schedule.

For a moment, he met his own eyes in the mirror. The wave of reality hit him so hard that he couldn’t help but bang his head against the wall.

“Ha…” Cheon Sooha’s pride was completely shattered. As he trudged out of the dressing room, Pilgyu, who had been watching him with suspicious eyes since they met, asked why he was acting like this today.

“You didn’t get into any trouble, did you?” Trouble… I did get into trouble… But the problem was that it was a kind of trouble he could never talk about.

“No, nothing…” He decided to just keep his mouth shut. Better to be treated as a hopeless troublemaker than to receive pitying looks.

On the way to Cheonha Hotel, Pilgyu complained about how much trouble he had gone through to prevent certain blacklisted reporters from being invited.

These were reporters known in the industry as “absolutely not to be given any bait,” notorious for writing maliciously fabricated articles or using sensational headlines to garner views, damaging the image of affiliated entertainers.

Among them, Sooha was considered a buffet of material for entertainment reporters. He was a prime target for articles with a strong clickbait nature.

From stories about Cheonha Group to the numerous lovers he had been with, to the size of his thing and his trait, even just collecting the photos Sooha posted on SNS every day would fill a truck with article material.

The number of views depended on how enticingly the article headlines were written.

Sooha enjoyed the attention and was good at ignoring controversies or criticism directed at him, but for most entertainers, it would be nerve-wracking.

There were even people who wrote special articles about the list of lovers Sooha had dated and those who deliberately involved Cheon Sooha to criticize Cheonha Group.

Among them, there was a crazy person who wrote an explicit article about the correlation between his dominant alpha trait and size.

Sooha laughed it off, but his agency sued for sexual harassment.

Among the many reporters, there were some notorious enough to be called Sooha’s dedicated paparazzi.

They were so persistent that even Sooha, who was too self-absorbed to care about others, recognized their faces.

Of course, he didn’t remember their names.

Anyway, Pilgyu said those reporters hadn’t been invited to the event, so they wouldn’t run into them.

Sooha, who had been dealing with a series of tiring events, thought it was a small relief amidst the misfortune.

Even after arriving at the destination, Pilgyu continued his worried nagging.

Don’t cause any trouble at the event, don’t go for a second round, and call as soon as the schedule is over.

These were the minimum requests Pilgyu made to Sooha.

Initially, Sooha casually agreed, but eventually, he got annoyed, saying he wasn’t a parrot and his ears were getting sore.

But Pilgyu timidly retorted that if he had listened to him from the start, it wouldn’t have come to this.

Huh…! Sooha couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh at Pilgyu’s increasing insubordination.

Finally, after promising to call as soon as the event was over, Sooha was able to break free from Pilgyu.

✮⋆˙

As soon as Sooha stepped onto the top floor of the hotel, he became the center of attention among the VVIPs invited to the party.

Like the miracle of Moses, people parted to make way for him. Sooha walked through the path as if he was used to it.

No matter how much people talked about Cheon Sooha, when they met him in person, they were overwhelmed by his appearance and aura, inevitably becoming captivated by him.

When one of the onlookers mustered the courage to speak to him, others quickly followed suit, each eager to say something.

“Oh my, I’m a fan.”

“Oppa, why haven’t you been in touch lately?”

“Sooha, I saw your photoshoot yesterday. It was amazing.”

“Can I take a picture with you? Can I post it on SNS and tag you?”

— and so on.

Despite pretending otherwise, Sooha’s shoulders puffed up with pride, and the corners of his mouth began to lift at the enthusiastic attention and goodwill directed at him.

Yeah, even if his back was breached, his essence hadn’t changed.

A top star, a celebrity among celebrities, the center of the world.

The son of a conglomerate family, a handsome dominant alpha.

And with a very large one at that!

The facts he had momentarily forgotten due to his shattered pride and self-esteem from the previous half-day came rushing back.

“Yeah, this is it.”

Surrounded by people, Sooha was busy flaunting his presence. Known for his generous fan service, he went even more overboard than usual. Then, he spotted a familiar back, and his expression stiffened.

“Uh…?”

His gaze fixed on one spot, and his steps slowed to a halt. As soon as he recognized the familiar figure, his face hardened.

“That bastard.”

He quickly walked toward his target. There he was, hiding in a corner, eating food. Without hesitation, he smacked the back of the head of the person who was munching away, causing them to exclaim—

“Ah!”

—and turn around. It was Jaewon.

“Hey, you traitor. You left me alone last night?”

Sooha’s sudden accusation made Jaewon furrow his brows.

“Hey, you disappeared first, so why are you blaming me?”

“Didn’t you worry when your only cousin suddenly vanished? What if I got dragged to some place where I couldn’t communicate and had my organs harvested, huh?”

Well, it wasn’t his organs but his backside that got breached, but Sooha swallowed the words.

“What nonsense…”

Jaewon was at a loss for words at his cousin’s illogical tirade, especially after getting smacked on the head out of nowhere while eating. He didn’t leave; Sooha disappeared first.

“Hey, even if your mouth is crooked, speak straight. Do you know how many times I called you last night? I looked for you for a while, and the bartender told me you left with some guy, so I just went home, you idiot! Complain about something reasonable!”