Chapter Text
The thing about impending dread, Kim Iwol had learned over the course of twenty-nine years burned out as a corporate slave—minus a brief but deeply scornful detour back to twenty, plus the two years he spent catching up to where he was supposed to be while being forced to debut as an idol—was that it never arrived at a convenient time.
It didn't knock. Didn't call ahead. Didn't send a polite text message reading: 'Hello, I'll be ruining your afternoon in approximately fifteen minutes, please clear your schedule'.
No.
Impending dread arrived like an uninvited guest who had let themselves in through the back door and was currently eating everything in the fridge.
He stared blankly at the holographic screen above his head with his interlocked fingers beneath his lower lip. He let both elbows rest on his thighs while sitting on the edge of his bed, applying a small pressure—like an anchor to reality.
The questionable otherworldly force—visible only to Kim Iwol's eyes—materialized with an officious presence he detested the most. A phantom intelligence called the system, hanging ominously like it was sending prophecies about his predetermined doom.
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[SYSTEM] Work instructions from the 'Superior' have arrived.
▶ Assistant Manager Kim, do you think the company is a joke?
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Fuck.
Kim Iwol's expression deteriorated further as he read it. The room was consumed by a silent standoff between him and the system.
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[SYSTEM] Work instructions from the 'Superior' have arrived.
▶ Failure to finish the assigned work will result in immediate penalties. Don't you know it, Assistant Manager Kim?
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So what if he did?
Yes, Kim Iwol had failed.
From the moment the system assigned the absurd goal to him, he knew that his fate was already sealed for damnation.
And now he was currently waiting for the penalty to befall him.
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[SYSTEM] 'Subordinate' is being notified of 'Punitive Measures'.
▷ 'Superior' will invoke 'Subordinate' as a result of 'Subordinate' failing to achieve KPI.
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At that moment, the system flickered, as if static had interrupted it.
And then, a new sentence appeared.
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[SYSTEM] Work instructions from the 'Superior' have arrived.
▶ So what do you think about suffering with something you never imagined before, Assistant Manager Kim?
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The moment the new panel appeared, crippling anxiety caused by the omitted clue began to creep over Kim Iwol.
Then his body collapsed. A shadow spread across his vision in slow motion as something seized his consciousness.
'Ah, shit...'
***
The moment Kim Iwol's eyelids flutter open, the first thing registered inside his brain by what his retinas capture is a chest—broad, solid—and two strong arms embracing him close.
For reasons he couldn't quite pinpoint—though it was likely the result of having paid far too much attention—Kim Iwol knew exactly who owned that body.
'Oh, it's Choi Jeho.'
Choi Jeho?
His neck craned upward. Quickly. Toward the source of the warm air fanning across his scalp, disturbingly close.
And then, with the kind of theatrical dread that usually accompanied thunderclaps and ominous music—though there was neither, just the quiet hum of the room—Choi Jeho's sleeping face came into view.
He had left a small gap between them, but Iwol's sudden movement closed the distance, their nose tips brushing.
Iwol pulled his head back slowly. The arms wrapped around him tightened in response. Choi Jeho's lips parted, and a voice—rough from sleep—reached his ears.
"Sleep more."
Instinctively, Kim Iwol wanted to escape from the absurd situation. So he pushed against Choi Jeho's body as he squirmed, trying to claim his freedom from the bicep confinement that—he noted with detached irritation—was sculptural enough to inspire religious devotion.
"Ah. Why are you in my bed, holding me creepily, Choi Jeho?"
Kim Iwol spoke, impressively and to his own surprise, without a single stutter.
Choi Jeho's eyebrows furrowed at his question. For a second there, Kim Iwol was tempted to poke and smooth them out while reminding him not to make it a habit. The faint line threatening to etch itself across that Adonis visage would be a tragedy, after all.
Choi Jeho's eyes opened, impassive as ever.
"What nonsense are you spouting so early in the morning?"
The audacity of bouncing the query back to him.
Unable to resist—or perhaps unwilling to examine why—Kim Iwol's thumb moved as if it had a mind of its own, brushing over Choi Jeho's furrowed brows.
"Stop frowning. And what do you mean, 'what nonsense'? This entire situation is nonsensical to begin with. Why are we sleeping together?"
"....."
"Why are you looking at me like I'm growing a second head? Answer the question."
Instead of offering a clear, humanly comprehensible explanation, Choi Jeho brushed back his hair with a heavy sigh—using the arm that had been wrapped around Kim Iwol moments ago. At least he had his personal space back now.
Kim Iwol took the chance to sit up.
At the same time, Choi Jeho moved to get up, letting out an audible tsk and casting a disapproving look at him.
"What?"
But Kim Iwol is not a pushover either. Everyone knows this. Including, presumably, Choi Jeho.
Choi Jeho, now at his full height, made no visible effort to cover his bare torso. Not anytime soon, it seemed. He silently locked eyes with Kim Iwol, who was still looking up at him.
Then it happened.
A breath-stealer. Speech, apparently, was no longer his strong suit. Kim Iwol was, for once, rendered speechless.
He, who had built a reputation—Sparklers might say an identity—around being the group's designated nagger. The one who always had something to say, usually necessary, occasionally overbearing, but never without reason.
And now? Nothing.
All because Choi Jeho simply leaned down—a ridiculously brazen move—and put that pair of flesh—called lips—onto Kim Iwol's.
Bold. Brief. And... undeniably soft.
Yet the sheer impact was enough to make the part of Kim Iwol's brain that had long had no time to rest buzz into a blank, useless state.
"Just sleep more. You're clearly stressed."
Kim Iwol's pupils trembled, his eyes widened as they tracked Choi Jeho's movements. The guy just casually left the room like he hadn't just cast an immobile spell on Kim Iwol with a single press of tender.
Kim Iwol remained frozen like a statue in his place.
Since his brain could not process what just happened, he figured that Choi Jeho's statement was true, indeed. He was stressed. Maybe he had finally lost it.
Choi Jeho was not someone who did this kind of thing. Putting his lips on another. Why?
Kim Iwol refused to call it a kiss.
If he had to put a label on it, it could fall into the sexual harassment category. He didn't give any consent. Didn't he? Does he?
Maybe Choi Jeho had gone mad?
Or he was the one who had gone mad?
Or maybe the system had decided he was defective and was giving him the death penalty—not by execution, but by erosion.
Piece by piece. Starting with his dignity.
But his five functioning senses were too vivid.
The sensation of Choi Jeho's lips was too vivid.
This could not be a dream. Nor could he blame it on anything other than the system—that cosmic, tyrannical influence that wanted to punish him with a different kind of mental abuse. His brain had simply failed him—unable to put the situation on the right track for calculation.
At the right time, the chime of the system came up like a foreboding alarm.
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[SYSTEM] Work instructions from the 'Superior' have arrived.
▶ What do you know about playing house, Assistant Manager Kim?
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Kim Iwol's eye twitched.
None of it.
The system didn't even bother hiding its contempt anymore. It never had.
And the fact that the system was still appearing was proof that Kim Iwol was still alive and this was still his reality.
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[SYSTEM] Work instructions from the 'Superior' have arrived.
▶ Tsk, tsk. You clearly lack the ability to process certain fundamental feelings. Consider this additional training to raise your proficiency in acting, got it? So how about a family roleplay game, Assistant Manager Kim?
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Kim Iwol stared at the system message.
Process certain fundamental feelings.
The words hung in the air like a trap. Or a test. He knew them. Each one. Their meanings, their etymologies, their appropriate grammatical contexts. He had once written essays using more sophisticated vocabulary—back when his brain still worked properly.
Back when he had a brain.
And yet.
Yet.
The sentence stared back at him like a riddle with no answer, designed specifically to make him look foolish. It was working.
He graduated from Seoul National University as a humanities major. He worked as a Hanpyeong Industry employee with a starting salary of 35 million won—although in the end, that workplace ruined his life and left him dead pitifully before he hit thirty. But nevertheless, that meant something. Didn't it?
Right now, staring at basic Hangul arranged in a condescending order, he wasn't so sure. The characters seemed to mock him. You used to be smarter, his brain whispered. What happened?
He wished he had a good answer. Choi Jeho happened sounded too much like an excuse. Even if it was true.
Family roleplay game.
Three words. He could read each character. He just couldn't understand why they were in that sequence. The order felt wrong. Offensive, even. A child could read them. A child could understand them.
A child, he noted with distant irritation, probably had better emotional processing skills than he did at this moment.
Meanwhile, Kim Iwol—Seoul National University graduate, former academic overachiever, current emotional defective—sat frozen, wondering if he had forgotten how to read Hangul sometime between waking up and this exact moment. It would explain a lot, actually.
And whose fault was that, exactly?
Choi Jeho.
This was Choi Jeho's doing. That ridiculous kiss. The arms. The tsk. The way he had casually left the room like he hadn't just short-circuited every functional circuit in Kim Iwol's brain.
His brain, usually so reliable for overthinking—some might say too reliable—had simply stopped.
Not crashed. Not glitched. Stopped. Like a computer that received an impossible command and chose to shut down rather than admit defeat.
'Divide by zero', he thought. 'Or perhaps, kiss by Choi Jeho. Same level of computational impossibility.'
Choi Jeho had broken him.
Temporarily. Probably. He would need to run diagnostic tests later to confirm. For now, he was forced to operate at reduced capacity, which was humiliating for someone of his intellectual pedigree.
And now the system was pouring salt into the wound with this condescending message about processing feelings. As if he hadn't already noticed the defect himself. As if he needed the reminder.
He could almost hear the error message.
ERROR: Fundamental feelings not found. Please restart your Kim Iwol and try again.
He didn't have a restart button. He barely had a working processor. And the one person who could reboot him was probably in the kitchen, shirtless, drinking water like he hadn't just committed emotional arson.
Kim Iwol took a slow breath.
Then another.
Neither helped.
A soft giggle. The pitter-patter of small, quick, padded footsteps across the floor, getting closer. A faint but discernible voice filtered through the door—just clear enough to catch his attention. Undoubtedly Choi Jeho's voice, saying: "Lee Cheonghyeon, don't run."
None of this helped him recover from the visual he encountered as the doorknob twisted.
He swore he saw an angel descended. Greeting him like a sunbeam.
"Hyung! Cheonghyeon is already up!"
There he saw it. The angel—no, Lee Cheonghyeon. But not yet Lee Cheonghyeon, technically. Distinctively. Lee Cheonghyeon.
A four-year-old Lee Cheonghyeon.
He had not signed up for this. He didn't remember signing up for any of this, actually.
Still perched on the half-opened door, holding the doorknob with both small arms hanging overhead. Smiling. All toothy.
Followed by Choi Jeho behind him. With an additional presence that had not been attached to him when he left the room earlier.
Our King of Cuteness? Kang Kiyeon?
Also reverted to four years old. Now looking over his shoulder at Lee Cheonghyeon, then at Kim Iwol, as he was being carried by Choi Jeho. Out of people?
Choi Jeho—still shirtless, still infuriating, still the primary culprit behind Kim Iwol's current mental collapse—simply looked down at little Cheonghyeon and asked:
"Is he not sleeping?"
Then he looked at Kim Iwol. As if he would have the answer. As if he was the one who should explain why a four-year-old was awake and running around at dawn.
Words failed him. Spectacularly. At this point, so was everything else.
Kim Iwol did not have the answer. He barely had a functioning brain. He certainly did not have custody of whatever parenting manual this situation required.
He stared back at Choi Jeho. Choi Jeho stared at him.
No one provided clarification.
Kim Iwol couldn't believe his eyes. His eyes couldn't believe themselves either. They were sending urgent complaint reports to his brain, which was still out of office.
He looked at the three of them—the tiny angel, the shirtless offender, the carried cutie—as if they might, somehow, grant him a small mercy and offer some explanation.
His searching eyes barely managed to read the system's new message, still floating in his peripheral vision. He was looking for answers.
And couldn't help letting out a broken chuckle. Full of incredulity.
"Ha. Haha... You must be kidding me."
The system was not, in fact, kidding. The system never kidded. The system only punished.
Turned out, transferred punishment was possible.
And Kim Iwol? Still yet to know the scope of the affected.
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[SYSTEM] Work instructions from the 'Superior' have arrived.
▶ Do your best, Assistant Manager Kim. Don't fail the task again. But this is punishment after all, isn't it?
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