Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ryu Gunwoo woke up to light streaking through a window, hitting him directly on his closed eyes. He flinched and moved his head away from it, groaning as he raised his arms to block out the sun.

He drank himself to sleep last night. When he got home after failing the exam again and was still completely drunk, he couldn’t help himself. He had a few more drinks, stumbling through the entrance, kicking his shoes off, and tossing his refrigerator door open. He had at least two more canned beers before he finally passed out, ending his misery for that day, yet for some reason, Gunwoo didn’t have a hangover. He slowly opened his eyes, the dust in the air apparent in the light. He groggily raised himself up before he stiffened.

Before him was an unfamiliar place. The wooden floors had toys strewn about, ranging from toy cars to stuffed animals. The walls were slightly dingy, with crayon marks here and there, placed low on the wall. At the foot of the bed was a clothing dresser. There was also a balcony, though it was pretty small. There was a small desk in the corner of the room, across from the bed, with kid’s art supplies and other stationary supplies splayed out. A bookshelf was directly to the right of it, filled with books of all kinds, but mostly ones for children. The left part of the bookshelf was more like a traditional bookshelf and the right of it looked more like cubbies being used as storage containers, with pull-out plastic boxes.

He looked down and adjusted the sheets covering his body, realizing he wasn’t on a normal bed. It was a large bed designed for families with children to sleep all together, placed low to the ground. He pulled up his legs and dragged out a teddy bear from underneath him. Was he sleeping on that…?

He turned his gaze to what was directly in front of him as he slowly slid himself off the bed, back aching from sleeping on top of a stuffed animal. He rubbed his lower back and rounded the partition wall that separated the sleeping area from the kitchen, leading to an open space. There was a small couch with a TV to the left of him, on the same wall as the desk. To the right was the kitchen. It wasn’t massive or anything, but it was definitely bigger than the average kitchen that you get in a small apartment like this. There was an L-shaped hallway with a partition wall that created more of an entryway. There looked to be a room for a washer and dryer on his left and a bathroom to his right.

‘The whole place is in disarray,’ he thought to himself as he examined every single detail of the place. It was almost nostalgic to see a place so lived-in, occupied by a family. This vision faded as he looked at a corkboard in the hallway leading to the door. A chill ran up his spine.

‘…There are so many pictures of VTIC’s Jaehyun and VTIC merch.’

On the corkboard were some of Jaehyun’s photocards. There were other things on it as well, like small character keychains and stickers of the other members, but…

‘…Why is the name ‘Cheongryeo’ underneath this card? Isn’t it Jaehyun?’

He didn’t recall Shin Jaehyun of VTIC ever having a stage name, but it could be more of a nickname among fans. However, Gunwoo followed VTIC pretty consistently and he’d never heard of it before.

‘…This person has to be a hardcore stan,’ he thought to himself as he looked back to the desk, realizing there was a collection of unopened VTIC albums underneath.

The more he looked, the more he found. On the bookshelves there were opened albums, stickers of ‘Cheongryeo’ notebooks, and VTIC related merch such as clothing or bags.

Jaehyun wasn’t a bad pick by any means. He had an aura about him that he couldn’t quite pinpoint, and even as a beta, he could feel his eyes naturally gliding over to him. Before he knew it, his camera would be pointed on his face and snapping a shot, no matter the situation. It was such a strong pull that he couldn’t escape it. It was probably the natural pull of a dominant alpha. Still, it wasn’t like Gunwoo was mad about the fact that he took pictures of Jaehyun without meaning to; his photos sold well.

That wasn’t important right now, though. Gunwoo put his head in his hands and groaned. It was incredibly possible that he had broken into someone’s home while drunk. He needed to get the fuck out of here, fast, before the owner came home and called the cops on him. He could explain that he was drunk out of his mind to the officer and it’d probably be fine, but it wouldn’t feel good. It was an insane thing to do.

As he walked toward the hallway out of the house, he examined the corkboard more closely. There were photos other than VTIC, that of a dark-haired man and a young girl, around primary school age. There seemed to be more pictures of her rather than him. Their hair colors were very similar, although the girl’s eyes were a deeper, colder color. It was gunmetal gray, with some of the photos making it look black or silver depending on the lighting. The man’s eyes were an amber color, sometimes brown. His smile was… forced, to say the least. He looked rather tired. The photos were well taken, at least.

He quickly snapped out of it and started to make the short dash out of the house. Not only did he manage to break into an apartment, he might’ve just broken into the apartment of a single omega parent. There was a chance that they were just brother and sister or another kind of relative, but he wasn’t going to take that chance. This wasn’t even going to be looked at as a stupid mistake by the police— he’d probably be pinned as a stalker desperate for omega pheromones. He passed by the open bathroom door as he ran to the entrance before he suddenly stopped where he was. Gunwoo’s face went pale, his hands shaking as he slowly walked backwards, his eyes trained in front of him. He looked into the bathroom, a mirror staring back at him.

That wasn’t his face.

He quickly ran into the bathroom, flicking the switch on to see it clearly. What looked back were tired eyes, pale skin, and a messy bedhead of dark hair.

Ryu Gunwoo came to a horrifying realization.

He was now that single omega father.

He gathered his bearings quickly. Gunwoo had always read comics and novels with body swapping tropes, but he didn’t expect for it to happen to him, nor for him to end up in a body that’s an omega with a child. Not only that, but he also didn’t expect to be sent three years into the past, which was another thing that he had to quickly rationalize. There was also a phone on the bedside table, faced upward with the password already in, which was how he easily found out the date.

He had found a suicide note next to the bed along with a bottle of sleeping pills. Gunwoo also checked the entryway of the apartment. There were hooks on the partition wall and a small shelf. The hooks in question were currently empty, but the shelf had a plastic tray with keys and a wallet in it. There were also shoes haphazardly tossed about at the front of the door, though most of them seemed to be child-sized shoes. There was a shoe holder, but it seemed like they were in too much of a hurry to put any of them up.

Gunwoo snatched the wallet and laid everything that he had found on the dining room table before tying all of his findings together.

He must’ve planned this out thoroughly.

The man’s name is Park Moondae, aged twenty-five. Omega, as he expected. Moondae had very few contacts on his phone, but the ones he did have were a bit concerning. He had been speaking with a private investigator and an attorney. The exact contents of what they discussed were rather vague, but he could infer as to what happened via his suicide note, though. From what he read, it was just a consultation and nothing was discussed further.

To the police who have found me: thank you very much for shielding my daughter’s eyes from this sight. She’s a smart girl, I know she is. She probably found the note I left at the front door and called the police.

Please contact this number, as it is my legal counsel. I also have a will with written instructions on how I would like to disburse my funds, as well as who will take care of my daughter after her death.

Please give this message to Chaeyeon:

Chaeyeon, I promise I did my very best, but I couldn’t do it anymore. Don’t ever think that this was your fault. You were my reason for living so long. Everything I did was for you, but I got tired of waiting for him. I’m sorry that I left you like this. I made sure my last months with you were as happy as it can be, and if you resent me once you grow older, I’ll just have to accept that. I left you one last meal on the table, and if the officers allow it, they’ll give you the food. I also put together a photo album for you. I’m sorry, Chaeyeon. Mommy loves you.

Gunwoo, who was now in the body of Moondae, kept reading the note in his hand before putting it down and massaging his temples. It was incredibly vague, but he knew what had happened.

Omegas, after being abandoned or rejected by their mates, slowly fall into an inescapable depression. Some recover and lead prosperous lives, and some succumb to it. In Moondae’s case, it seemed to have taken him a very long time before it set in.

His fingers trailed the back of his neck, flinching as he did so. Moondae’s scent gland seemed pretty sensitive, so it was even weirder that he didn’t feel any scarring of any sort. If he was bitten and then the mating bond was broken, there’d be scarring on the bite. If they were still mated, the bite would be indented instead, like puncture wounds. However, there were neither. It was soft, smooth, and untouched.

So, there was only one other option.

‘Moondae had a soulmate who rejected him.’

Gunwoo fell silent for a while and went to take a seat at the dining table, the food in question that he made for his daughter, Chaeyeon, sitting there. It was a small dining table, with only two chairs. Wrapped in seran to keep it warm were homemade dumplings, pan-fried with a small dish of soy sauce to the side of it.

He didn’t consider himself to be a very emotional person, but his chest felt incredibly empty at the discovery. Soulmates almost never rejected each other or broke their bond. They can’t, they’re attached to each other by fate, whether they like it or not. Soulmates are rare nowadays and not many people have them, so for this to happen… Something incredibly wrong must’ve occurred. They met, had a child together, and yet they never bonded?

That was unbelievably cruel.

He picked up Moondae’s phone and started scrolling through his texts and accounts, his face stiff as he thought, “What kind of twisted logic is that?”

He then went onto his calendar app, his thumb ghosting over the schedule he had laid out. It was more like a checklist than anything; his day to day seemed to revolve around Chaeyeon and his job.

‘Wake up at 5 AM, make breakfast, get Chaeyeon ready for school, go to work, get off work, go grocery shopping, pick up Chaeyeon from her after-school academy, make dinner…’ His schedule was mostly like this every single day, besides some deviations here and there, like playdates and outings… and VTIC content watch parties blocked out for them to watch together.

‘Is he the fan or is it his daughter…? Could it be both…?’ he thought as he kept scrolling through the calendar. It was December 15th, Moondae’s birthday. He decided to kill himself on such a day, and there was nothing listed after the 15th. No schedule, no nothing. The months leading up to his death had a lot of deviations to his schedule.

‘Contact private investigator, write a will, quit job, take Chaeyeon out to eat, celebrate Chaeyeon’s 8th birthday; ah, so her birthday is on the 6th.’

This was getting increasingly more sad. Either way, he needed to hide all of this. According to Moondae’s schedule, Chaeyeon was supposed to be coming home from her after-school academy in a few hours.

‘…I have zero idea how to handle kids,’ he thought to himself as he took the suicide note, ripped it up and started to put it in the trash along with the pills. It said that there was a note near the front door for his daughter, and he definitely needed to get rid of that as well. Gunwoo had to be Moondae now, and he had to play it well.

‘Shit,’ he thought to himself as he slid on a pair of sandals and looked around for the note in question. It was one of the types of apartments that was located directly indoors without access to the outside unless you went out through the lobby. Obviously there were fire escapes, but all Moondae could see was concrete and another apartment door across from him. He didn’t see the note in plain sight, so he looked under the doormat. As expected, there was a key under the mat and a folded up piece of paper, nice and neat right under it. It was placed in such a manner that it couldn’t be a random piece of paper— it was purposeful.

He picked up the note, leaving the key under the mat. He quietly opened the door and headed back inside, unfolding the note as he kicked off his sandals. Moondae suddenly understood why all of the shoes were so disorganized. He clicked his tongue and began to put the shoes up, wanting to not contribute to the problem by kicking off his sandals. He then pulled out a chair and sat at the dining table, finally beginning to read the note.

Chaeyeon, don’t unlock the door. Don’t go inside. Call 112 and tell them your mommy has collapsed. Tell them your name and your address. If they ask you to give more information on how I am, just tell them to come quickly. When they come, unlock the door for them and let them inside. Don’t follow them in Chaeyeon. Stay outside. Once the police enter inside and come out to talk to you, answer all of their questions. Don’t be scared of them.

I love you, Chaeyeon.

Moondae couldn’t help but put his head in his hands after reading the note and let out a shuddering breath, trying to calm himself down. It reminded him so much of his own parents. If Gunwoo had been left a note by his parents before they passed, he wouldn’t know how to react. He didn’t know if it was better or worse than not leaving one at all.

He quickly ripped the note and put it in the trash, his hands shaking as he did so. The house suddenly had a solemn atmosphere. The picture of Chaeyeon smiling with Moondae, the toys that were scattered around, the crayon marks on the walls, and the smell of fabric softener told him that this was a home with a family. Gunwoo knew that Moondae loved her and did his best, even if it wasn’t always enough. He could feel the love for her even in that plate of dumplings.

‘…Rest peacefully, Moondae,’ he thought to himself as he started to pick up the toys one by one, cleaning the mess up quietly and quickly. He doubted Moondae wanted to leave the house a mess on purpose; he just didn’t have the energy to clean it.

He just hoped that Chaeyeon would realize that her mom loved her.

For the next three hours, until around seven PM, Moondae cleaned the house and reorganized everything. Shoes were put where they belong, toys were put in a toybox and shoved to the side of the bed, the floors were sweeped and vacuumed, the laundry was done, and any dust and grime had been dealt with.

“Holy shit, I’m exhausted,” he said out loud as he rolled the vacuum into the washer and dryer room, sweat on his face. He suddenly had so much respect for Moondae.

It was a good idea for him to clean, anyway. He needed to find any important documents. For example, he found Chaeyeon’s birth certificate. The father wasn’t listed on it; only Moondae’s name was there. He also found all of his other relevant bank information, his previous employers, and other identifying information. Park Moondae was apparently an orphan.

Seriously, Gunwoo wasn’t allowed to have parents in another body, either…?

He sighed as he wiped away his sweat with the bottom of his shirt, revealing Moondae’s stomach. He could barely believe he had given birth, considering that Moondae looked pretty young for his age. He looked like he was twenty years old. Not only that, he didn’t have any stretch marks.

‘Lucky genetics,’ he mused to himself.

Just as he was about to warm up the dumplings that Moondae made, he heard the rattling of the front door’s doorknob. He quickly turned his head back as the microwave was nuking the dumplings, watching as the key turned. The door then opened, the sounds of footsteps reaching his ear. As soon as the door closed behind her, he heard a voice announce itself.

“Mom, I’m home!”

Shit.

“Whoa, you cleaned the entrance! I’ll put my shoes up, too!” a voice said, the sound of shoes being taken off. He could hear the rattling of backpack straps as well.

Exiting the hallway was a small girl. The pictures that they had posted didn’t do her justice. She had straight dark hair up to her shoulders, long eyelashes, and a slim face.

‘Who the hell is her father, because these are some crazy genetics.’

She was obviously very pretty. She definitely took after her father because there was no way Moondae’s face could compete with that. The only thing that looked similar was probably the shape of their eyes and lips. She was wearing a gray long-sleeved shirt, a pair of black sneakers, and thick leggings. Moondae could see a long beige puffer jacket on one of the hooks at the entryway

“Whoa, you cleaned everything! It’s so sparkly!” she exclaimed as she looked at Moondae. “Mommy, when did you do all of this? Didn’t you get off work not too long ago?”

Double shit. This might be bad.

“…I quit my job.”

“Huh?!” she exclaimed with wide eyes. “Wait, why?! I thought the convenience store was doing well!”

“…Mommy quit because he didn’t like how they were treating him.”

That felt wholly and entirely awkward to say as well as hear. Him? ‘Mommy’?

“…Hm, okay,” she said as she quickly ran to sit at the dining table, almost slipping on the wooden floor because she was wearing socks. Moondae instinctually held out his arms in case she fell, but she quickly steadied herself.

“Take your socks off and put them in the laundry,” he said to her. “And wash your hands before eating.”

Chaeyeon puffed her cheeks and mumbled an ‘okay…’ before she walked into the bathroom.

The microwave dinged and Moondae gripped onto the counters, a sense of dread falling over him. There was no way he could do this… It wasn’t even that there was ‘no way he could do this,’ he had to do it. This was the situation he found himself in, and so he had to deal with it, but damn was it hard.

Moondae started to take the dumplings out and sat them on the table, listening to the sound of water running before it turned off. He heard bare feet on the ground as she came out, her hands still damp from the water as she exclaimed, “I washed my— Dumplings!”

She scampered to sit at the table and tapped her hands on the surface, looking at the dumplings with stars in her eyes.

“I’m getting the chopsticks, wait a moment.”

“Okay~!”

He sat down a pair of kids-sized chopsticks on the table before he paused.

Wait, can she even use chopsticks?

His question was answered as she picked up the chopsticks, struggling to hold them in her hands for a second before finally finding her balance and picking up a dumpling. She lightly dipped it in soy sauce and took a bite, smiling as she savored the flavor.

“It’s so yummy~!” she said in a sing-song voice as she turned her head to Moondae, who was leaning on the kitchen counters. “But Mommy, there isn’t enough for you. Did you already eat?”

“I did,” he lied. “This is your portion. Eat your fill.”

Chaeyeon looked at him, almost as if she was staring into his soul. It was more like a glare. They stared at each other in silence before Chaeyeon raised the half-eaten dumpling in her chopsticks. “…I’m not that hungry because I bought some stuff at the convenience store near the hagwon! Have a bite!”

“…”

…Should he? Moondae hadn’t eaten all day.

“Mommy, get another pair of chopsticks! We can eat it together.”

Before long, Moondae was sitting next to Chaeyeon, eating the dumpling from her chopsticks.

‘…It tastes good,’ he thought as he chewed. Chaeyeon had a smug smile on her face as Moondae swallowed.

“You were hungry~” she teased.

“Eat your food.”

“Yes, Mom,” she said as she picked up another one. “Oh, but why did you make handmade dumplings today? You usually don’t do it because it takes a long time.”

Triple shit.

“Mommy just wanted to do something nice for you today. I had a lot of time.”

“You’ve been doing a lot of nice things for me these days,” she said as she took a bite and chewed, turning her gaze away from Moondae.

“Is that so?”

“Mhmm!”

“Like what?”

Chaeyeon swallowed and looked at Moondae. “Well, you took me on a picnic, and then an amusement park… twice! And then we also went to the aquarium.”

“But isn’t that a good thing?” Moondae asked. He didn’t like where this was going.

“You did that all in three months,” she said as she put down her chopsticks and used her hands to emphasize her speech. “You do nice stuff for me all the time, but you don’t do this much in this amount of time.”

Moondae felt horrible, because he knew exactly why he did all of that in three months.

“…Was it weird?”

“A little bit,” she admitted as she looked at her lap, her voice becoming softer. “You’ve been looking really sad these days, Mommy.”

Oh.

“…Well, Mommy is feeling much better now,” he said as his hand went to pet her head. She turned her chin up to look at him, and a brightness that wasn’t there before filled her eyes. “I’m sorry to worry you.”

Tears started to fill Chaeyeon’s eyes before they started to roll down her cheeks. Moondae froze as she began weeping.

“W-Waahh! Y-you’re so stupid, Mommy!” she whined as her breath hitched, wiping her tears away with her hands.

Oh fuck.

Moondae’s hands went out to wipe her tears away. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. Mommy is okay. Chaeyeonie, you’re fine too, right? Don’t cry.”

“I-I can’t st-stop crying because you’re s-so stupid…!” she sobbed before reaching out to hold Moondae. He now had a weeping child in his arms, staining the front of his shirt with tears and snot.

Moondae awkwardly patted her back before they became more practiced, gently picking her up from the chair and cradling her in his arms.

“…Don’t cry, Chayeonie. Everything’s going to be okay,” he whispered to her as she started to calm down. “Let’s wash your face. Your face is going to be all swollen in the morning.”

Chaeyeon finally parted from Moondae’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she was sniffling, but she had a look that could kill. “You’re stupid.”

“…I’m well aware of that.”

“…I want a bath instead.”

Moondae did not know how to bathe a child.

“…Okay.”

“Mom, you’re smelly as well. Let’s take a bath together.”

Fuck.

It was a lot easier than he thought. It was like an ingrained muscle memory, as if he’d been doing this forever. As if this was his day-to-day life. Chaeyeon was humming a song to herself (was it one of VTIC’S?) as Moondae took the shower head and started to wet her hair. He was sitting behind her while Chaeyeon was positioned in front of him.

“Is the temperature okay?”

“It’s good, it feels nice…” she said with a satisfied smile.

He discovered that Chaeyeon wasn’t that fussy of a kid. She didn’t complain when shampoo dripped down her face or when he accidentally got conditioner in her eye. She sat unbothered as he started to blow dry her hair. She did complain when the air was too hot, and he quickly adjusted the setting for it. The both of them then changed into their pajamas as Moondae started to brush her hair out.

“Your hair is really silky,” Moondae said, not even thinking about it. Why did he say anything, actually?

“Mhm,” she agreed. “Mommy said I got it from Daddy.”

“…”

Ah, he might’ve entered a circle of hell.

“I guess you did get it from Daddy,” he quickly recovered. “My hair isn’t as silky as yours.”

“Nooo,” she dragged out the word, turning her head around to look at Moondae with a cheeky smile. “Mommy’s hair is really soft! I got my prettiness from you too!”

Thanks for the compliment, although it was unbearably untrue.

“You’d be pretty even without Mommy or Daddy influencing your genetics,” he said. Did she even understand the word ‘genetics’? “You’re naturally a pretty girl.”

“Ehehe, I guess I am~” she hummed and kicked her feet back and forth.

By the time they were done, an hour had passed. 8:30 PM was a good bedtime for kids, right?

Chaeyeon ran with her little legs and jumped into the bed, flopping into the clean blankets. She took a deep sniff of the freshly washed laundry and sighed, her head poking out from the blanket. “It’s so nice…”

“Okay, it’s time to sleep,” Moondae said as he scooted in next to Chaeyeon. It’d be weird for him to not sleep next to his daughter, who isn’t actually his daughter. “Did you do all of your homework?”

“I did all of it,” she said as Moondae slipped underneath the blankets. As soon as he was under, Chaeyeon moved closer to him, resting her head on his chest. “I always do it at the hagwon.”

“…Isn’t it tiring to stay at school all day? You go to school at eight, and then you come home at seven.”

“No, I like school,” she said as she started to settle into the embrace. When did Moondae even wrap an arm around her? “All of my friends are really nice, so it’s always fun. Like Minji. Ah, Minji asked if I was still okay to go over for that sleepover!”

“…Chaeyeon, can I tell you something that might seem stupid?”

“Hm?”

“Mommy accidentally deleted all of his schedule on the calendar.”

Chaeyeon raised herself using her arms and looked at him with a pouty face. “Mom!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he apologized as he reached for his phone on the bedside table. “Can you tell me it again? I promise I won’t forget.”

“…Okay.”

Moondae wrote the schedule Chaeyeon had down on his phone’s calendar. It was pretty consistent for school days, and on the weekends she mostly hung out at home. Apparently the two of them would have mother-daughter date nights and binge-watch TV shows and watch VTIC clips.

“Okay! That’s all good now,” Chaeyeon said as she flopped back in the bed with slightly tired eyes. She yawned and turned on her side. “What about your job, Mommy…?”

“Mommy is going to have to get another one,” he said as he checked his bank information on his phone. Moondae actually had quite a lot of money saved up, around five million won. Rent was a million a month, and then calculating food expenses and other things… Moondae was good at saving money. “We’ll be fine for a while, though. Mommy’s been saving.”

“…Good,” she said as she leaned on Moondae again. “…I’m getting sleepy.”

“Then go to bed.”

“Wah…” she grumbled as Moondae set his phone back on the nightstand, plugging it into the charger. He had all of his alarms on in the morning so he could get up and make breakfast for Chaeyeon before she went to school. Moondae then wrapped an arm around her again and pulled her in close. A soft waft of pheromones filled the air, content and happy. It smelled like chocolate milk. …Was it Chaeyeon’s?

“…Goodnight, Mommy,” she said.

“Goodnight.”

“…I love you.”

What was Moondae supposed to say to that?

Moondae pressed his lips in a thin line, Chaeyeon’s eyes shut as she adjusted her to hold Moondae closer to her.

“…I love you, too.”

That definitely didn’t feel right, but it didn’t feel wrong, either.

Her breathing steadied as she fell asleep. Light breaths came from her as Moondae’s eyes were still open, holding her close.

This didn’t feel real. This has to be a game.

…A game?

“…Status window,” he whispered before his face turned red, pulling the blanket up to cover his face. Was he stupid?! Maybe Chaeyeon was right!

‘As if that’d ever work—’ he thought to himself as he pulled the blanket off of his face, only for his mouth to go dry.

“Huh?’ he voiced out.

[Name: Park Moondae (Ryu Gunwoo)]

Level: 0

Title: None

Vocal: C+

Dance: -

Physical Attractiveness: C

Charm: -

Traits: Infinite Potential

Moondae blanked for a second, a few seconds passing before the hologram turned an angry red. Moondae’s breath hitched as he contained himself from jumping, Chaeyeon still wrapped under his arm.

[Alert!]

Status Abnormality: Debut or Die!

[Debut or Die]

You will die if you don’t debut as an idol within the allotted time.

Days remaining: 365

Moondae may have just entered a new circle of hell that was previously undocumented.

Chapter Text

After Chaeyeon fell asleep, he slowly and carefully exited the bed, trying not to wake her up. He sighed when he managed to successfully slide out, pulling the blanket over her as he tousled his hair and paced back and forth, lost in thought.

Debut as an idol? When he had a kid? That was nearly impossible, if not just impossible. Besides, Moondae wasn’t young either— he was twenty-five years old. There were definitely idols who managed to debut at his age, but those were very few and far in between. Having a year as his time limit was also incredibly constricting. There would be no way for him to make a debut in that amount of time.

‘Unless…’

It was December 15th, 202X, right?

Moondae snatched his phone from the nightstand and began searching up on the internet.

Idol Inc.

He remembered when season two of Idol Inc. got cancelled due to the premarital sex and pregnancy controversies, but season three, the one that they named ‘Idol Inc. Relisted!’, did pretty well.

‘…I’m still a single omega mother who gave birth as a teenager,’ he thought to himself, sweat beginning to form at the top of his brow. Wasn’t he going to be the perfect fodder for scandals if it got out? If he debuted, he’d have to keep the fact that he and Chaeyeon were mother and daughter for at least five years. There was no way around it.

The next problem was that he was pretty sure the date that he could sign up for it had already passed.

‘…But I can use that method,’ he thought to himself, recalling the words of a hoobae while he was in university. She said that contestants were sometimes recruited via karaoke rooms. With how the controversy was from last season, Moondae was pretty sure they didn’t have a significant number of applicants.

Moondae quickly changed out of his pajamas and threw on black pants and a hoodie, slipping on the same pair of sandals from earlier as he grabbed his wallet and his keys. His hand reached for the doorknob before stopping, his hand hovering over it. He paused for a moment, certainly in thought, before backing up and kicking his sandals off. He quickly walked over to Chaeyeon’s desk and grabbed a pen from a plastic cup and a piece of paper. He hastily wrote down a message on it before leaving it on the dining table.

Chaeyeon, I’m going to be out for a few hours. I’ll be back before 12 AM. Get some sleep.

Moondae sighed as he put the pen down next to it and opened the door, making sure to lock it behind him before walking down the stairs.

‘Now that I think about it, our handwriting looks really similar,’ he thought to himself as he stepped outside. It was cold. He shivered and pulled his hoodie over his head and rubbed his arms. The bite of the December air pricked his skin as he began walking, taking his phone out and looking on the map for any nearby karaoke rooms. They seemed to be in Seoul right now, which made things convenient. He didn’t have to travel long distances if he managed to get into Idol Inc. Moondae picked a good spot for him and Chaeyeon to settle down in.

As he routed his way to a karaoke, the sound of cars passed by him. People on the streets seemed to be looking at him, giving him side-glances and whispering in each other's ears. …Was what he was wearing kind of weird? He was in some pretty thin clothing, but it wasn’t that weird. It didn’t matter, he needed to test out this status window.

The person at the front desk scrunched his face up when he was talking to Moondae, squinting his eyes before confirming his purchase.

‘What am I doing with my life?’

Moondae watched the status window pop up in front of him after singing a song.

[Mission Accomplished!]

Level 0»1

You have obtained 1 point!

[Missions in Progress]

10 attempts (0/10)

100 attempts (0/100)

1st experience (0/1)

10 experiences (0/10)

……

The bar started to scroll down almost endlessly, the missions in question becoming incredibly inflated, to the point the numbers were irrationally impossible to achieve. He sighed and looked at his stats again.

‘All idols need to be good at singing, right?’

There were a lot of things that went into being an idol; it was an industry where you needed to be multi-talented and good looking, but Moondae had always thought that vocals mattered the most. Idols made music so they needed to have a good voice.

Moondae crossed his arms before putting the point into his vocals, picking up his microphone again. He took a deep breath as he punched in the same exact song.

‘…It sounds a lot better.’

He was really thankful for his trait, Infinite Potential. It really felt like a cheat skill. While most people had limits, this allowed Moondae to keep going beyond. He didn’t have a maximum— he could go beyond it.

…He needed to grind this out.

He came back home late, at around 12 AM. Chaeyeon was still fast asleep, and Moondae quickly discarded the note he wrote into the trash. She ended up not reading it, but it was good that he wrote the note in the first place. It was better to be safe than sorry.

After setting up a few more things for tomorrow, like a bag for when he went outside and some documents, he slipped into bed. Moondae fell asleep rather quickly, the exhaustion of his situation taking a toll on his body. As he was starting to fall asleep, the faint smell of vanilla wafted in front of him.

Moondae woke up to his phone alarm. It didn’t even feel like he slept.

“Ugh…” Chaeyeon groaned at the sound, flipping around in her bed while pulling the blanket in between her legs. Moondae rubbed at his eyes and quickly turned the alarm off, but he stayed laid in the bed with his eyes closed. He wasn’t going to fall back asleep… It was just…

Moondae bolted upwards and started to exit the bed. If he stayed there any longer, he definitely would’ve fallen back asleep.

Moondae scratched the back of his neck and walked over to the bathroom, brushing his teeth and washing his face to wake up a little bit. He stared at himself in the mirror and frowned slightly, pinching a few strands of his hair and rubbing them.

‘…I should get a haircut.’

Moondae still had a lot of things that he needed to do. First of all, he needed to try and get a spot in Idol Inc. by going to the karaoke rooms. Obviously he needed to make himself look better so they’d be inclined to cast him into the show, but that was an easy fix. Secondly, there were still a lot of unanswered things about Moondae that he needed. For example, while cleaning the apartment, he found a lot of information about Moondae but some of it felt out of nowhere or it pointed to nothing. He did find something that could prove useful— it was a self-storage unit that Moondae had been paying for monthly. It didn’t cost very much, but he had it for a reason. There were other things that he found in the apartment that didn’t quite add up, but that storage unit would probably answer all of his questions.

One of the things he felt was suspicious was the photo book that Moondae had left, along with the camera. That camera was expensive. It was at least 400,000 won. Not only that, but Moondae had taken so many pictures that he had a plastic sandwich bag filled with SD cards. The photo album was more of a carefully picked selection of his memories with Chaeyeon, but what stood out was what wasn’t there.

‘There aren’t any photos from when she was born or when she turned a year old.’

Moondae was hiding something, and he was hiding it well. The only reason why he was able to uncover so much was because he was living in his body. It was perplexing as to why he was doing so much to hide his information. Was he being chased down by gangsters?

‘Moondae is a single mother without any government assistance, yet he’s managed to save this much money, pay for a car, manage rent for a place like this, send Chaeyeon to a hagwon as an elementary schooler, and still manage to have extra money for things like idol merch and fun excursions,’ he thought to himself as he started to take out the leftover rice and kimchi. Kimchi fried rice was good for breakfast, right…?

‘Moondae probably has the death benefit from his parents passing. He was also an orphan and an emancipated minor, so he’d have gotten government funding until he turned nineteen… But that still doesn’t explain very much.’

Where was he getting all of this extra income from?

Moondae finished cooking the kimchi fried rice and changed out of his pajamas, tossing them into the hamper and changing into his clothing for the day. He set the table up and poured a glass of water for both himself and Chaeyeon. He then walked over to where she was sleeping and gingerly rubbed her shoulders.

“Chaeyeon, it’s time to wake up,” he whispered. She grumbled and tossed.

“Don’t wanna….”

“Then I’ll eat all of the food I made by myself,” he said, sliding off of the bed and getting up to his feet before he felt a small hand latch onto the bottom of his shirt. He turned to look back at her, Chaeyeon’s eyes opened slightly, still groggy from sleep.

“Noo, I’m hungry too…”

“Then hurry and get up.”

“Okay…” she mumbled and let go of her grip on Moondae, pressing her face into the blankets for a few seconds before finally jumping up, her eyes now wide open as she scrambled out of bed.

‘…Did we just do the same exact thing?’

“Eat up,” he said as he pulled the chair out for her. She rubbed her eyes and sat down, lazily grabbing a spoon. “You have to get ready for school.”

Chaeyeon nodded as she scooped up a bite of the fried rice and looked over at her mom. With food still in her mouth, she asked, “You’re all dressed up. You’re going to take me to school?”

“I have some errands to do today as well, so I’ll be going out of the house with you. I’ll drop you off at school.”

She smiled as she reached for her glass of water, kicking her legs back and forth underneath the table. “Okay~!”

Moondae checked the time. It was 7:20 AM. It wasn’t that big of a drive to her school, but he needed to get her ready, which was another big deal. Chaeyeon quickly slipped off of the chair and then hurried off into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face. After finishing that, she headed to the clothing dresser. She then began to shed off her pajamas and dress herself; a comfy pair of beige pants, a brown turtleneck sweater, and warm socks.

‘She takes care of herself,’ he observed as he cleaned up their plates and started to wash them. Moondae didn’t really know how to be a parent, so he was pulling on his memories of what his mom did for him. He was also pretty independent as a child, and he could see that Chaeyeon was also someone who liked their independence. “Moondae raised her well.”

Despite all of his circumstances that led to his death, he tried his very best.

“Mom, can you tie up my hair?” Chaeyeon said, approaching Moondae as he wiped his hands off on a towel. She held out a black hair tie in front of him.

“…Sure.”

He didn’t know how to tie up hair.

He started to brush her hair and gingerly tried to put it into a low ponytail, but a few black strands quickly came loose and it ended up lopsided. Chaeyeon brushed her bangs to the side and gave Moondae a deadpan look.

“…Mom, why does it look bad?”

“I’ll try it again.”

The second time wasn’t exactly the charm, but they settled for it. Chaeyeon had some choice words about it but she said it was ‘decent enough’ and began to head for the door. She took her coat from the hooks off the wall as well as her backpack. She zipped the coat up and smiled, saluting him from the hallway.

“Private Park Chaeyeon is ready for takeoff!”

“That’s not even accurate,” Moondae muttered as he grabbed his sling bag, laid next to Chaeyeon’s desk.

“It’s accurate in the Park household!” she insisted as she disappeared behind the wall. Moondae could hear the slow turning of the doorknob.

“Only in here?”

“Only in here!”

‘…This kid is weird,’ Moondae thought as he hurried to the entrance and slipped on a pair of shoes. “Or are all kids like this?”

“Ah, Mommy, your jacket!”

“Ah, right,” he said as he grabbed his hoodie from one of the hooks and pulled it over his head. Chaeyeon then opened the door and they exited.

They walked down the stairs and entered the parking lot. There was an elevator, but they were close enough that they really didn’t need it. It was a relatively simple car, nothing too big; four doors, five seats (three in the backseat), and a separated trunk from the passenger area. Moondae unlocked the car and Chaeyeon quickly opened the backseat’s door and climbed in, sitting on top of the booster seat before putting on her seatbelt.

Moondae had his driver’s license, and it wasn’t surprising to him. Having a kid and a job meant that you needed a reliable form of transport. Moondae had looked up the route to her school last night since he didn’t want to raise any suspicions about him popping up the GPS. ‘Mommy, why are you using the GPS when I’ve been going to the same school forever?’ Yeah, he didn’t want to have to explain that.

They quickly pulled up to the school’s entrance, with numerous kids walking through the opened gate, their backpack straps dangling below. Some of the kids were running in with their friends, with happy yells as more and more people started to flood in. For the younger kids, some of them were accompanied by their parents.

As Moondae parked the car, a girl with a short bob and brown hair ran up next to the driver’s seat and waved her hand. She looked to be around the same age as Chaeyeon. The girl was wearing a black skirt and a pair of black tights, a gray winter coat covering her body.

“Roll down the window!” Chaeyeon commanded Moondae who sighed and did as she said.

“Good morning, Minji!” Chaeyeon said as her window was rolled down.

“Morning! Ah, your oppa dropped you off today!” Minji exclaimed. Moondae turned his head to look at Minji.

Oppa?

“Mhm, he’s gonna do some errands today. Hold on, let me get my bag—” Chaeyeon said as she undid her seatbelt and reached for her bag. “Also, my oppa said it was okay for us to have a sleepover on Sunday!”

“Yay!” Minji exclaimed. “I’m going to head in first because I have to go to the teacher’s office, but I’ll see you in class!”

“Mhm! I’ll see you!” Chaeyeon said with a smile as she waved her hand at Minji, who waved back and began running off into the school. Moondae quickly grabbed onto Chaeyeon’s wrist before she opened the door, turning his body toward the backseat.

“Wait, Chaeyeon,” he began to say. Being called ‘oppa’ twice wasn’t a coincidence. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Chaeyeon slowly sat back in her seat and looked at Moondae in confusion. He loosened his grip and sighed, not even sure if he should ask the question in the case that he looks insane, but this was dire information. He began to roll the window up and once they were closed, he asked the question.

“Why do you call me ‘Oppa’ instead of ‘Mom’?”

Chaeyeon shuffled in her seat with a confused expression. “You were the one who told me to call you that. Are you okay?”

There was no way for him to avoid the fact that he wasn’t actually Moondae at this point. He looked away from her and said softly, “My memory has been pretty spotty these days. I need your help to remember the things I don’t. Can you help me, Chaeyeon?”

“…Okay,” she said softly, fidgeting in her booster seat with worried eyes. “When did you lose your memory? How much of it?”

“Yesterday, before you came home, I took a nap,” he explained, “and when I woke up, my memories felt a little fuzzy.”

“That can happen?” she asked.

No. At least, not that he knew of.

“It happened to me,” Moondae explained.

“Oh,” she said before fiddling with her fingers. “Umm… Well, you told me I can’t call you that when we’re in public, because in public, you aren’t able to have babies.”

“‘Aren’t able to have babies’?” he asked confusedly.

“You said that you couldn’t be seen as an omega, because boy omegas can have babies and boy betas can’t. So, I’m not allowed to call you that unless it’s just the two of us.”

That made a lot more sense.

“That’s a lot of work, though.”

“Mhm, but I’ve been calling you ‘Oppa’ longer than I’ve been calling you ‘Mommy.’ I started calling you Mommy when I was around three years old. You said it was because I understood at that age that I could only call you Mommy if it was just you and me.”

Chaeyeon was that smart of a kid? He didn’t doubt it, considering the conversation that they were having right now.

“Then what’s the story we tell people?” Moondae questioned. “To explain why you and I are together.”

Chaeyeon cleared her throat. “You’re actually my last living relative. My uncle! My parents died as a baby and I was adopted by you. You were able to adopt me because you were ‘stable.’ You had ‘money and a safe place to live.’ That’s what you said.”

Moondae got chills up his back.

Why was there such an elaborate scheme? So, in the eyes of the public, Chaeyeon’s an orphan? Why would anybody want that for their kid? It was definitely a foolproof explanation until you dug into government papers, which wasn’t very likely to happen, and the government would never expose his personal information like that. Moondae had to have lived as a ghost for this to work, and the more he thought about it, the more it all pieced together. No friends, no real contact information, nothing. All he had on his phone were contacts related to Chaeyeon— who had her own phone— and work or other related contacts. They were the essentials, and that’s it.

Moondae put his hands on the steering wheel, his forehead resting on top of them. “…I want to ask about your dad.”

Chaeyeon went dead silent.

“Do you know anything about him?”

Chaeyeon was still silent before she said in a small and uncertain voice. “You never said much about him. Some stories, a-and how I look a lot like him… And that he’d come back to us. You told me when I turned seven, or somewhere around then, he would definitely come back…”

Chaeyeon was already eight.

Moondae, he abandoned you.

You were abandoned and lied to, and you believed it.

“Okay,” he said as he took his forehead off of the steering wheel and turned to look at her. “Okay, I understand now. Thank you Chaey—”

Chaeyeon’s face eyebrows were furrowed and her lips were pressed into a thin line. It looked as if she had been forcefully interrogated, regretting what they managed to pull out of her.

“Chaeyeon, hey, look at me,” Moondae said, reaching out to take her hand in his. He wasn’t even thinking, he just did it. “Chaeyeon, what’s wrong?”

“…Mommy, do you really not remember?”

“…I don’t. What did I do? Did I say something?”

She frowned, her eyes turning red. She looked like she was trying to hold back her tears, but one managed to cascade down her cheek anyway.

“Three months ago, you told me to stop asking about Daddy,” she said, her voice strained. “I kept asking when he’d come back as soon as I turned seven, a-and… I’m sorry. You looked so— so sad when I asked, so I stopped. I’m sorry, Mommy.”

And Moondae, you realized. Three months ago, the realization hit you, or maybe you realized it even before then.

You tried to live as long as you could, for Chaeyeon, but you couldn’t do it anymore.

It tore you apart.

“Hey,” Moondae said, leaning over his seat to put her face in his cheeks. “Chaeyeon, you don’t have to say you’re sorry. It’s my fault, okay? Mommy is feeling a lot better. It’s okay to cry if you feel sad. I’m sorry.”

He wiped away her tears with his fingers and Chaeyeon sniffled, moving Moondae’s hand away from her face as she cupped her eyes with her hands. Moondae pulled his hands back reluctantly, still hovering over her before she said, “…Can I have a tissue?”

“Oh—” he said as he opened the glovebox and passed her a few napkins. “Here.”

“Thanks…” she said as she took them and blew her nose and wiped away her tears. “I’ll be okay.”

“…”

It was a pretty little white lie from an eight year old girl trying to comfort her mother.

Moondae, you left a lot of things behind. A lot of things that you shouldn’t have left behind.

She was right there.

“…Chaeyeon, I love you,” he said. His mouth was moving before he could even comprehend what he was saying.

Chaeyeon began to open the car door, still holding onto the tissue as she blew her last bit of snot. She looked back at Moondae with a slightly strained smile. “I love you too.”

And then she left, shutting the car door behind her. Moondae watched as she started to walk into the school. She looked like she was taking deep breaths before she started running in, disappearing inside of the building.

A sinking feeling filled Moondae’s chest as he let out a shaky breath. This was a lot to deal with.

He put the car in drive and began to drive out.

He couldn’t waste any more time.

If Moondae wanted to live, for both his own sake and to make sure that Chaeyeon wouldn’t be an orphan, he needed to debut as an idol.

“Fuck,” he cursed as he was driving on the road.

“Fuck!”

Moondae had arrived at the self-storage unit. It was a place that sold a variety of storage units, from ones that were relatively small— around the size of a small walk-in closet— to larger ones that could fit a whole car. Moondae had been paying for a small one. The person let him through after confirming his identity with that same strange look as he passed by him and approached his self-storage unit.

There was a metal door that looked exactly the same as all of the other units in the area. Moondae unlocked it and turned the handle. Moondae coughed a little bit, the dust that had been collecting inside floating out as it revealed a mahogany crib, covered in plastic to keep it protected. To the right of it was a toybox, also wrapped to keep dust from falling directly on it.

‘Chaeyeon’s baby stuff,’ he thought to himself as he walked in. That seemed to be about it but then he saw the faint sheen of metal underneath the crib. He then got to his knees and looked underneath the crib, which revealed a small metal safe.

‘There’s a safe within a self-storage unit?’ he thought to himself as he reached his arm to pull it out, the sound of metal screeching against concrete floor ringing out as he managed to uncover it. There wasn’t any dust on top of it since it had been underneath the crib. There was, however, a passcode on it. Moondae could just break it open since it was his, but he didn’t want to damage any of the contents inside.

He thought about any possible combinations. His birthday? No, that’d be too easy. He wouldn’t do Chaeyeon’s either because the whole purpose was to keep her identity under wraps. Moondae pulled out the documents from his bag and began to look at them, beginning to put in strings of numbers that appeared frequently in them, but it didn’t get a hit.

‘So what would it be?’

It had to be something only Moondae knew…

Moondae then looked at his phone, the lock screen and a photo of him and Chaeyeon. Moondae had already changed the passcode to the phone to something he was familiar with, but the original Moondae had put something else. It was a four number combination that didn’t seem to have any significance, and there wasn’t any crossover with anything else that he’s found.

‘But maybe…’

Moondae began to turn the safe’s dial again.

1-2-0-4.

There was a resounding click before the door opened up. Moondae held his breath as he let the metal door open wider. Inside was a set of papers, and… a debit card? The card had expired, but the savings account attached to it was definitely still open. The papers were bank statements that went back as far as five years ago, with one for each year. There was one for this year as well, from September, the month before Moondae plotted his suicide. It seemed he didn’t open it all that often, maybe once or twice a year, but it was still shocking. This was where he had been pulling his money from?

Next to that was a camera. He could easily identify it as a pretty solid beginner camera, but it was an older model. If he was correct, it came out in the 2010s, around the time…

‘When Chaeyeon was born.’ He grabbed the camera and immediately tried to turn it on. Great, the battery was dead. He had to charge it. Just like how it was at home, there was a plastic bag, but there was a singular SD card.

Moondae quickly took out all of the items from the safe and put them in his bag. He then shoved the safe back underneath the crib and pushed himself to his feet, closing the door and locking it.

He nodded to the person at the front as he left, making his way to his car. He quickly put the camera on a charger and while he was waiting for it to charge, he looked through the bank statements more thoroughly. Moondae then downloaded the bank app that the account was attached to and logged in relatively easily, using the bank statements and prior knowledge for his email and passwords.

Moondae was dumbfounded by the balance that was in the account.

70 million won.

How the actual fuck did he have this much money? There was zero way he managed to earn 70 million won, especially that long ago. Moondae didn’t have a high school degree and his employment history was subpar, working at things like convenience stores and cafés. Not only that, but he didn’t invest any of the money in here as well. It was just generating interest from sitting in the account for six years. But why? Why wouldn’t he invest it?

‘At least money is the least of my worries,’ Moondae thought as he put the bank statements away. He needed to get a renewed card for it…

Moondae then picked up the camera, seeing that it had one bar of battery life on it now. While it was still on the charger, he turned it on and immediately went to the image gallery.

His mouth went dry.

The first photo he saw had Moondae, although he was a lot younger, sleeping soundly next to a baby Chaeyeon, who was cuddled into his chest. Chaeyeon was sandwiched in between Moondae and the person taking the photo.

He could recognize that face anywhere. He looked a bit younger, a soft smile on his face. Moondae was using his arm as a pillow, but he still managed to hold up a peace sign for the camera. He had dark and messy hair, long eyelashes, and no shirt on. He was resting on part of Chaeyeon’s baby blanket. From the lighting, it looked like it was early morning, the sun just coming up from the horizon. He looked like he had just woken up, an aura surrounding him, his face partially covered because it was pressed close to Chaeyeon. They were all snuggled up together. They looked so peaceful.

It was Shin Jaehyun of VTIC.

Moondae’s soulmate and the father of his daughter was a national idol.

Chapter Text

December 6, 201X - 19:38:27

“Is the camera on?” a voice calls out as a pale hand moves away from the lens. After backing away, three people come into frame. A teenage Moondae with a party hat is in full view, and behind him is Shin Jaehyun, with slightly tousled hair with a few strands stuck to his forehead. He’s sitting down at a table and Chaeyeon is to the right of him, sitting in her high chair, a cute blue ribbon headband holding back her baby hair.

The room is dark, the only thing illuminating it being a birthday cake with a singular candle on it. On the cream were the words ‘Happy Birthday Chaeyeon’ in chocolate drizzle. It wasn’t anything fancy or big, but it did look delicious. Strawberries lined the bottom and there were chocolate flakes at the top. There was also a box with a red ribbon wrapped around it on the table as well as a box of take-out fried chicken.

“It’s on,” Moondae announced as he went around the table and sat next to Chaeyeon. “Do you want to start us off?”

“Ah, making me sing the song, are you?”

“You are an idol,” Moondae clicked his tongue. “Well— you’re going to be. Sing a nice song for me and Chaeyeonie.”

“You’re so demanding,” he teased, putting his elbow on the table as he looked at Moondae. “But I like it when you’re demanding. You become cute.”

“…Sing the song already,” Moondae said in a deadpan voice.

Jaehyun nodded and started them off as the two of them began to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Chaeyeon, a smile spreading across her chubby cheeks as she looked between her mother and father. When Jaehyun said her name in the song, he caressed her cheek with a finger, a smile on his face as he did so. A laugh escaped Chaeyeon as they continued the final verse. When they finished the song, Moondae and Jaehyun clapped their hands and Chaeyeon imitated them, clapping her hands as well.

“Wow, our princess is so good at clapping her hands,” Jaehyun complimented, a soft and endearing smile on his face. “Chaeyeonie, blow out the candle. Right here.”

Chaeyeon looked slightly confused as Jaehyun pointed to the candle. Realizing this, Jaehyun then began to imitate the motion of blowing out the candle, and Chaeyeon quickly caught on, attempting to blow out the candle, but it was more spit than anything.

Moondae quickly made a barricade with his hand to protect the cake from being slobbered over as Jaehyun laughed at the action, watching as drops of spit drooled down Chaeyeon’s mouth. He quickly passed a napkin to Moondae as he continued to chuckle. Moondae snatched it from him and began to wipe his hand, a slight glare being pointed towards Jaehyun.

Moondae's voice became soft as he addressed Chaeyeon. “Chaeyeon, why don’t we all blow out the candle together, okay?”

“Alright,” Jaehyun said before coubting down, “three, two, one—”

They all blew it out together as another round of applause broke out between the three of them. Chaeyeon’s laughs filled the small apartment as Moondae stood up from his seat, disappearing from the camera’s view before the light turned on. The apartment could now be seen clearly. It was small— really small actually. They were seated at a dining table, their chairs at the back of the wall. The kitchen wasn’t in view but that was most likely because the camera was sitting on the kitchen counter. To the right was an open door, most likely leading to the bedroom, although there seemed to be a large futon on the ground next to the table.

Loud rattling was heard before Moondae came into view with a knife, plate, and a couple of forks . He walked over to the table and cut a slice of cake and put it on a plastic plate that was already on the table, setting it on Chaeyeon’s tray.

“Dig in, Chaeyeon—” Jaehyun said but before he could even finish what he was saying, she was already smashing into it with her fingers and putting it in her mouth.

A small chuckle came from Moondae’s mouth as he cut another slice and put it on the ceramic plate he brought, placing it in front of Jaehyun. “She eats well,” Moondae commented as he adjusted his chair to be next to Jaehyun.

“Like her mother,” Jaehyun added as grabbed his fork and took a bite of the cake. “Mm, it’s good. You got this from the place you used to work at, right?”

“Mhm,” Moondae hummed as he sat down next to Jaehyun. He picked up his fork and took a portion of the cake that Jaehyun was eating from. “It was nice that they gave me an employee discount even though it’s been over a year since I’ve worked there.”

“I can’t believe it’s been that long,” Jaehyun said with a slight sigh. “It feels like yesterday.”

“Hah, maybe for you,” Moondae scoffed. “I had to give birth to a baby and take care of her while you were at the dorms.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaehyun apologized as he put his face close to Moondae. “I’d be there, but—”

“I’m just joking,” Moondae said as he picked up some cream from the cake and placed it on Jaehyun’s nose. “I was the one who made you do it. I can’t blame you for anything if I was the one who planned it all. We made a deal, right?”

“I know,” he said as he picked up a glob of cream and placed it on Moondae’s nose. He scrunched his face up as Jaehyun looked at him with a smile before pulling Moondae’s face close to him, licking the cream off while simultaneously getting more on him due to the cream that was on his own nose. “…Tasty.”

Moondae’s face was bright red as he pulled Jaehyun closer. “…I want a taste as well.”

Jaehyun smiled as Moondae licked the cream off of his nose before leaning in to kiss him. Moondae put his hands behind Jaehyun’s neck and Jaehyun put his on Moondae’s shoulders, the two of them getting closer and closer, as if they couldn’t get enough of each other. A deep and long kiss was shared between the two before they pulled away, a small string of saliva parting from their lips. Jaehyun grabbed a napkin and wiped off any excess cream. He started to chuckle to himself.

“What’s so funny?” Moondae questioned.

“I’m not laughing at you,” he said with a smile. “I just can’t believe I’m here. It’s a nice feeling.”

“…It’s a nice feeling for me, too,” Moondae admitted before his eyes caught onto Chaeyeon. “Ah, Chaeyeonie, don’t go to sleep yet— Daddy has a present for you!”

Moondae let go of Jaehyun.

Jaehyun grabbed the box with the ribbon on it and started to undo the ribbon. Chaeyeon’s eyes opened wide when she saw the box being opened in front of her. Meanwhile, Moondae was quickly cleaning Chaeyeon’s fingers and mouth with a wet wipe.

Jaehyun then opened the box, revealing a familiar brown teddy bear, with one of its arms a patchwork blue and the other a pink. It was one of those sleek bears that didn’t have a lot of fuzz on them, but it was soft to the touch. There was a red ribbon wrapped around its neck with the name ‘Chaeyeon’ on it.

“Wow, you must’ve saved up for this,” Moondae commented as Chaeyeon reached out for the bear. Moondae quickly picked up her smashed up cake and set it to the side as Jaehyun lended it over to Chaeyeon, infatuated with it.

“Of course I saved up,” Jaehyun said, watching Chaeyeon hug the teddy bear in her arms. “I wanted to give something nice to my daughter before I have to leave. Something that she’ll have for a long time.”

“…She’ll appreciate it a lot when she’s older,” Moondae said as he watched Chaeyeon’s eyelids flutter before fully closing, using her new teddy bear as a pillow. “I’ll put her to bed.”

Jaehyun hummed as Moondae started to pick her up from her high chair, carrying her in his arms as he disappeared into the room to the right of the camera. As Moondae did that, Jaehyun began to put the cake back in the box and started to clean up, placing the gift box and shared slice of cake off to the side. He then approached the camera, his legs and waist in the view of the camera as Moondae walked back into view, sitting back down at the table.

“Do you want a soda?” Jaehyun questioned.

“Pass it over,” Moondae said.

“You sound like an alcoholic when you say it that way,” he said with a lilt as he grabbed two cans and walked towards the table passing one to Moondae. “It’s interesting.”

“If we want to talk about things that are morally incorrect, then I shouldn’t have had a baby at sixteen,” he said as he opened the can. Jaehyun did the same as they tapped their cans together. Moondae chugged his down while Jaehyun took gentle sips, opening the box of fried chicken.

“Thank you for giving birth to Chaeyeonie,” Jaehyun said as Moondae let out a satisfied noise, putting his can of soda down before reaching a hand towards the chicken.

“…Thank you for giving me the chance to have her,” he said as he took the chicken and bit into it. Jaehyun leaned towards Moondae and kissed his head. Moondae leaned into it, and then the two were against each other in silence, seeping in each other’s heat and presence.

Jaehyun scrolled through his phone with his right hand, his left arm wrapped around Moondae’s shoulders. In the span of five minutes, Moondae’s eyes had closed fully, resting his head on Jaehyun’s shoulder.

“Moondae?” Jaehyun questioned, turning his head slightly to look down at him. “Babe?”

Silence permeated the room as Jaehyun put his phone down on the table and began to slide his right arm underneath Moondae’s legs, easily picking him up bridal style. Jaehyun walked towards the futon laid across the ground, gingerly placing Moondae down on it. Jaehyun hovered over Moondae for a moment, his arms caging him in. He then leaned down, placing a gentle kiss on his lips as he covered him with the blanket.

Jaehyun then began to clean up. He began to wash the dishes, pack the half-eaten cake slice into a box, and put the fried chicken into the fridge. While he was doing this, you could see out of the corner of the camera’s vision that Moondae threw the blanket off of him. Jaehyun dried his hands on a towel and then he was suddenly in front of the camera, picking it up carefully.

“Chaeyeonie,” he whispered as he pointed the camera at himself. He had a small smile and an afterglow that couldn’t be described. “If you’re watching this, know that Daddy loves you and Mommy very much. It makes me a little sad that I’m not going to be with you for your first years of life, but I’ll come back.”

Jaehyun then pointed the camera at a sleeping Moondae, his shirt slightly pulled up to reveal his stomach. Jaehyun walked over to him and kneeled down, his hand stretching out to pull the shirt down and cover his stomach up.

“Happy late anniversary,” Jaehyun whispered as he began to sit on the futon next to Moondae, zooming in on Moondae’s tranquil face. He had eyebags, but even that added to how everything in life stood still, just for this moment. “I’ll work hard for you so when I come back, you can have everything you deserve. Both you and Chaeyeon.”

“I love you, Chaeyeon. I love your mommy as well.”

The recording ends there.

Moondae took shuddering breaths as tears poured down his eyes. He didn’t even realize it until his vision became blurry, droplets landing on the camera’s screen. It felt like he couldn’t breathe, his hand clawing at his chest as he watched footage unblinkingly. He put the camera down on his lap and kept taking breaths, but his chest still felt tight. This sinking empty feeling permeated inside of him as Moondae tried to catch his breath.

Where did it go wrong?

How did it go wrong?

They looked so happy.

So when?

Moondae, through his tears, kept searching through the photos, all of them meaningful in some way. He wiped them away with his sleeve biting his lip as he stared down at the screen. Moondae kept pressing the next button, flashes of happy faces and tranquility that had been lost to time and shoved inside of a metal safe. To other people without any knowledge or context, these would look like the memories of a happy childhood— nostalgia for a past that couldn’t be reclaimed. But Moondae couldn’t look at it without separating his emotions; he couldn’t turn his head away from the baby and the body that he now inhabited that gave life to it.

He knew the tragic outcome that all of these happy pictures eventually led to.

Gunwoo wasn’t the type of person to cry or fall in love. He had been too busy struggling to survive as a kid whose parents died in a tragic accident. He had to fend for himself, study hard, and try his best. It was a miracle he even managed to get into Yeonhui University, but even after he managed to get in, he never found it in himself to let up. Crying became a sign of weakness for him and love became something that was shoved on the backburner. To love something is to leave yourself vulnerable. Gunwoo never fell in love— never had a physical connection with someone.

To feel so intensely and brightly made him feel awkward and out of place. Moondae held himself as he took deep breaths, finally managing to steady himself. From all of that sadness that dwelled inside of him, a spark of anger flared up before immediately calming down. He needed to be rational.

As he continued looking through the photos, images of candid shots of both Moondae and Jaehyun appeared alongside the regular baby photos. A majority of them were when they were sleeping, but a few stood out. There was one of Jaehyun taking a water bottle out of a mini-fridge, his shirt off and his back with light scratch marks. Even back then, Jaehyun was fit. There was also one of Moondae, his oversized shirt hanging off of his shoulders. He was in his underwear and he was sitting at the table drinking some water. What was most apparent were the red kiss marks on his legs as well as his inner thighs. As he kept looking through it, the photos started to date back further and further until he finally reached a week after Chaeyeon was born, tiny and small. It was a photo of Jaehyun holding her close to his chest as she slept. He looked down at her, the love and adoration apparent in his eyes.

And yet it all went wrong.

Moondae frantically took out a piece of paper and a pen, starting to write down everything he had gleaned. He sniffed, a small tear staining the paper, but Moondae frantically wiped it away, smearing it across it instead.

jaehyun of vtic is the father. stage name is now cheongryeo? gave birth to chaeyeon december 6 201X. december 4 is an important date? jaehyun lost contact after chaeyeon turned a year old, moondae was about to turn 18, jaehyun was already 18 by chaeyeon’s 1st birthday. jaehyun and moondae met when they were 16? 15? they made a deal? jaehyun knew that he’d be away and promised he’d come back. knew he’d become an idol? jaehyun wasn’t there for chaeyeon’s birth: explains the absence of his name on birth certificate. funds were most likely given to moondae by jaehyun, meaning their last known point of contact was 6 years ago, when chaeyeon was 2. moondae waited for 7 years and then realized he had been abandoned. what caused the realization? why did moondae hold on for so long?

It was so much information and he knew nothing. Despite having so many pieces of the puzzle, there were things he couldn’t fit together. He could definitely guess a few things, but it was mostly speculation. He had more questions than answers at this point. There wasn’t any real confirmation that he could get.

‘Unless I actually meet him.’

Moondae slammed his head on the car’s horn, the noise blaring for a second before he removed his head. Meeting Shin Jaehyun was the worst thing he could do. How the fuck was Moondae supposed to become an idol when his soulmate— who abandoned him and had a kid with him— was also in the same industry?

It all felt so wrong. Something about this whole situation felt so wrong and uncanny yet he was unable to figure out why it felt like that. Moondae had zero idea how he’d be able to look at VTIC or Shin Jaehyun the same anymore, now knowing that he had a secret love child the entire time. What felt even worse was that his face was plastered on the walls back in their apartments, and Chaeyeon seemed to love Jaehyun.

She seemed to love the person who was her father.

She didn’t even know he was his father.

Moondae took a deep breath, his hands shaking, but not because of his anxieties or worries. They shook out of anger and then it immediately calmed down. Moondae wanted to be angry. He wanted to scream for Moondae who had been so wronged and for Chaeyeon who was innocent, losing her real mother in the process.

But he couldn’t get angry, because the words and voices contained in the video were so sincere. The look in Jaehyun’s eyes, the way that he smiled at both Moondae and Chaeyeon, and the small acts of service told him that something went wrong. This wasn’t supposed to be the outcome.

Moondae didn’t know, and he didn’t know if he’d ever figure out the reason, but what mattered right now was the present. Chaeyeon was real, and she was alive. He had a goal to achieve.

Moondae would make it out alive for her.

After he managed to wipe his tears and calmed himself down, Moondae did what he set out to do. He walked into a hair salon with the intent of getting a haircut, and even though there wasn’t any signifier that he had walked into the store, everyone’s eyes naturally fell upon him.

And that’s when it hit him.

Omega. Pheromones.

Moondae slapped a hand on the back of his neck at the realization. Pheromones weren’t a taboo subject or anything like that. Alphas, betas, and omegas could walk around without taking pheromone suppressants or blockers and not get any flack for it— it was a personal preference in a majority of cases— but the big difference was that most adults had the ability to control their output so it didn’t come out in dense and overwhelming amounts. Betas and children (who are beta until they’re proven otherwise, such as presenting during puberty or being born a dominant alpha or omega), don’t have receptors that are as keen as alphas and omegas. They also don’t give off pheromones as strongly as omegas and alphas, and therefore don’t have much need to consciously control their output, although they did know how to do it.

Gunwoo used to be a beta.

In his mind, he was still functioning as a beta and wasn’t controlling the output of his pheromones because he wasn’t used to it.

The realization was horrifying.

Every single time people looked at him while he was passing by, they probably assumed he was an omega who was putting out his pheromones with the intent of getting knocked up by a random alpha. They didn’t say anything about it, of course, and he was genuinely lucky that he hadn’t been assaulted by now. Chaeyeon probably didn’t notice or comment on it because she was a kid whose receptors weren’t as developed on top of her being surrounded by his pheromones 24/7.

Moondae immediately stepped out as if he pretended that he left his wallet and got into his car. He began to reel his pheromones back in, but it was a difficult process. He never had to do so and it boggled his mind to think about how alphas and omegas always had to have this subconscious control over them. How the hell did they function? It probably comes naturally to them, but it didn’t come naturally to Gunwoo. Once he managed to control the output— or, at least he believed so— he walked back into the salon.

The smell was now obvious to him now that he wasn’t putting it out. The front area of the salon smelled like vanilla, thick and potent. Moondae felt so bad that he went up to the front desk and apologized for the pheromones.

“I’m not that great at controlling my pheromones,” he apologized. “I’m very sorry.”

“Oh, that’s all right!” the girl at the desk waved him off. “It smells nice, and it’ll air out if we open the windows.”

Even if she said it was fine, Moondae didn’t enjoy feeling like an inconvenience. After the girl gave her his haircut, Moondae overpaid purposefully and also gave her a tip on top of it. She thanked him profusely, and Moondae said that it was fair of him to do so after impeding their business.

After that, he spent time at the karaoke. He didn’t know how long he had to keep this up for, but he knew it was bound to work. He made sure to go to the karaoke stations near the broadcasting company (like what his hoobae from university said.) If he remembered correctly, she said that a week after the auditions closed and they didn’t have enough people, they’d recruit from the karaoke rooms. It was a method that had been used since season one, and if the writer was the same, it’d still be applicable even now.

And so, Moondae dumped his points into his singing.

It would take a few tries, certainly. There were probably some days where the writer didn’t visit and/or visited different karaokes, so he just had to keep at it.

At least that’s what he thought.

He heard his karaoke room door open slightly and he pretended to be slightly surprised at her entrance.

“I happened to pass by and I couldn’t help but be impressed by your singing,” she said as she held out her business card, the name ‘Ryu Seorin’ printed on it. She was in the Department of Journalism and Broadcasting.

“What’s your name?”

“Park Moondae.”

“Ah, that’s such a unique name. I really think you’d be a great fit for a program we’re filming,” she said. “You really seem to have a star quality, and you’re also very handsome.”

“Oh, thank you…” Moondae said in a slightly nervous voice, trying to keep her interest. At the end of the day, Moondae was the one who managed to luck out. He managed to pull out his trump card when she mentioned his parents.

“I don’t have any parents.”

“Oh,” she said, but she seemed to have a sparkle in her eyes. “I’m really sorry about that. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, don’t be, I’m fine,” he commented. “Right now though, I am raising my niece on my own. Her parents also passed away and I managed to gain custody of her since I was in a financially stable position. I don’t know how that’ll work if I’m in the program, but…”

If there were a golden goose, Moondae would probably be it.

He walked to the broadcasting station with her and did a short camera interview. It wasn’t anything much. They probably expected him to play the role of an ordinary person to add a fun and chaotic factor to the show, so they didn’t ask him to sing. After the camera was turned off, Ryu Seorin said that she would contact him with more information. The caveat?

Filming was in ten days.

Moondae did a variety of other errands now that he knew he had the money to spend. Moondae seemed to live within a budget in mind and didn’t want to touch the money that he had in his account unless it was absolutely necessary, but he wasn’t actually Moondae. He went grocery shopping and he found himself buying random snacks and desserts. He picked up a pack of dark chocolate, ice cream melon bars, banana milk, and other things. He obviously bought other necessities, like a new bag of rice, a small jar of cabbage kimchi and radish kimchi, and vegetables. Moondae had been planning for his suicide. The fridge was relatively empty because of this. He knew he wouldn’t be there to cook for Chaeyeon, and Chaeyeon wouldn’t be there to eat it.

He had to deal with a lot of things, actually. He had to research and prepare for Idol Inc., figure out all of this new information about Jaehy— Cheongryeo— and manage to keep the truth hidden for five years or more.

His errands finished by the time he had to pick Chaeyeon up from school. He parked outside and texted her that he was at the front waiting for her. Moondae waited for her, watching as the kids poured out of the school. Moondae felt awkward about seeing Chaeyeon again, and it wasn’t even her fault. He was still shocked about Jaehyun being her dad.

He finally saw her, picking her out among the sea of kids. The more he looked at her, the more he could see the similarities. Black hair and dark eyes with long eyelashes. When he imagined her smile, it looked similar to the ones in the photos of Cheongryeo. It then dawned on him.

Were there really any similarities to Moondae? She looked more like Cheongryeo’s daughter than Moondae’s.

A sinking feeling appeared again, but this time it was quiet and subdued, intending to make a home there.

Moondae watched as she walked and when he could finally see her face clearly, she had a bit of a solemn look, but put a pep to her step once she got close enough to the car.

As she opened up the backseat, she smiled and said, “Hi!”

“Did you have a good day at school today?” he asked her as she closed the door.

“Mhm,” she said rather casually as she buckled herself in, pushing her hair to the side to get a better view of where she was aiming it. “I had a lot of fun today! Me and Minji worked on a project together.”

“That sounds nice,” Moondae said as he put the car out of park. He then rummaged through a plastic bag next to him and pulled out a banana milk. “Here, this is for you.”

“Ooo!” she said as she took it from his hands and put in the straw. “Thank you, Mommy.”

“It’s nothing, it’s just—” he started to say. “I’m sorry for making you cry in the morning.”

“Stop that.”

Moondae heard her stern voice, his shoulders stiffening.

“Stop what?”

“Apologizing.”

“It’s good to apologize,” he said.

“But you do it too much,” she said. “You say sorry for things you don’t need to say sorry over. Sometimes you say sorry, and I don’t even know what you’re apologizing over. Before, you were fine, but… But you do it a lot now.”

“I’m guessing that’s a recent thing I’ve been doing,” he said as he continued the drive home.

“Mhm…” she said as she sipped on her banana milk. It was probably ‘three months ago’ recent.

“Right. I guess I do that a lot,” he said. “But me apologizing to you for this morning wasn’t for nothing. I did it because I made you upset. Wouldn’t you want someone to apologize to you if you’re upset?”

“…I would.”

“Then that’s that,” Moondae said. “I’m sorry for making you upset.”

“I accept your apology.”

Most people don’t say that they accept it, Chaeyeon…

“Thank you for accepting it,” he said. “We’re having eomukguk and tteokbokki for dinner tonight.”

“Really?” she asked, her face rising up.

“I bought a lot of groceries today. I also bought some snacks as well. You’ll help me carry them in?”

“Mhm, mhm!” She nodded.

Chaeyeon was also stronger than he expected. Moondae obviously carried a majority of it and gave her the lighter bags, but she was pretty adept. She also helped him to put the groceries away into the fridge.

“Mommy, can I take a piece of dark chocolate?” she asked.

Most parents would say ‘wait until after we eat dinner,’ but Moondae didn’t feel like doing that.

“Only if you give me a piece as well,” he said as he took the empty plastic bags and wrapped them up, putting them inside a drawer that also contained plastic bags.

“Yay~!” she cheered as she opened the bar of chocolate and snapped off two pieces. She quickly out one in her mouth and waddled towards Moondae and held out the chocolate. Instinctually, Moondae opened his mouth for Chaeyeon to put it in. The bitterness yet the sweetness of the chocolate reminded him of something, but he didn’t know what. It had some undertones of roasted coffee. It tasted very adult.

“Chaeyeon, you like dark chocolate?” he asked as he got up to his knees. Chaeyeon was sitting at the dining table with the chocolate bar in her hand.

“I’ve always liked dark chocolate,” she stated. “Mom, you’ve forgotten a lot… Should we go to the doctor?”

“No, Mommy’s fine,” he quickly replied. “I’m just a bit surprised—”

And then his eyesight aligned with the corkboard of pictures. Cheongryeo’s many photocards were plastered on the cork board alongside Moondae and Chaeyeon’s. Now that he looked at it, it seemed like a sad attempt to cobble together the semblance of a family— to form a connection that wasn’t there.

“Mom?” Chaeyeon questioned, looking at Moondae with a slightly worried expression. Wordlessly, he started to take the photos off of the corkboard, taking out every trace of Cheongryeo away from their family. Maybe he should sell the albums, too? The unopened ones would probably sell well. Still, that sad emptiness remained in the core of his body without him meaning to.

Moondae’s heart still wanted Jaehyun, even though he wasn’t really Moondae. He craved him, yearned for him, and there was something in the back of his mind that told him that surely he would come back. It gave him a false hope that someone who he barely knew would come for him.

And Gunwoo felt that want. That need.

He didn’t like it.

“Mom, stop,” he heard from behind as he kept ripping the photocards out. He wasn’t being gentle with them.

“Mom!” she yelled, grabbing onto his arm and pulling it away. Her voice was hoarse with a slight waver. “Mom, stop it! Stop ripping them, please!”

“Chaeyeon, I’m just going to move them somewhere else—”

“No!” she screamed, tears filling her eyes as she dropped to her legs, hugging Moondae’s leg. She started shaking as she cried. “P-Please put them back up, Mommy, please. Please don’t take them down, please.”

Moondae stopped and looked down at her. Chaeyeon was breathing heavily as she held onto Moondae’s leg for dear life. His mouth felt like sandpaper. How much was he going to make her cry? He immediately went down and put the photos to the side and wrapped her in his arms. Something in his heart was sinking rapidly.

“Chaeyeon, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I’m sorry.”

“S-Stop it—” she cried, as tears kept trailing down her face, her breaths hitching over and over again. “S-Stop it, Mommy, don’t take them down—”

“I won’t, I’m sorry,” he said with a slightly panicked voice. “I’m sorry. I’ll put them back up. I won’t do it again.”

Chaeyeon kept crying, covering her mouth with her hand to silence her cries, small whimpers of, ‘please, don’t do it,’ coming from her as she clamped her eyes shut.

Moondae could only hold onto her as she cried, slightly ripped photos of her father laying next to them.

He didn’t know what to say to her. Moondae kept lying and lying and he’d have to keep lying to her. He could never tell her that her mother was gone and a stranger replaced his body.

He felt like such an awful person.

Chapter Text

Moondae held Chaeyeon close as she cried, her breathing evening out the more time passed. He laid his head on hers, rubbing her back. Now that he looked closely, their hair wasn’t that different at all. It was the same color.

Moondae wouldn’t consider himself as someone who was born with parenting instincts. He didn’t think of himself as someone who was fit to raise a child well, but as he was holding her, something about this situation felt familiar. It was like a distant fleeting memory of him holding someone close to him as they cried, silky smooth hair between his fingertips.

And Moondae felt like he was missing something.

Those photos, this apartment, the small things that made his heart ache, and yet there was nothing to recollect. Empty. Something was missing and he had no idea what it was, besides the paper trail of what happened in the past.

Moondae, who were you?

Who are you?

“Chaeyeon,” he said softly. “I made you upset again. I make you upset a lot, don’t I?”

Chaeyeon sniffled loudly and looked at him with red rimmed eyes, stray pieces of hair stuck to her face due to the tears. She glared at him, her lip quivering. “You do, and you should stop it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said as he wiped away her tears with his shirt. “I’m actually sorry. I’m not saying that just to say it.”

“I know,” she assured as she let Moondae clean her up. “You make me mad sometimes… You make me sad, and worried, and… and a lot of other things.”

“I shouldn’t,” Moondae’s voice wavered as he picked her up in his arms, placing her on the dining table’s chair. “It’s my fault as your parent.”

“But you do anyway.” She nestled her head on top of Moondae’s stomach and closed her eyes. A quiet shuddering breath left her as her shoulders untensed. She held onto the bottom of his shirt, her fingers balling up the fabric. “You make me worried and mad and sad because I love you. You do the same for me, right?”

“I do. I feel that way as well because I love you.” ‘Love’ was a word that he didn’t throw around very often, and it still felt awkward on his tongue, yet he said it anyway. The discomfort of those words in his mouth madd something worse come out. He didn’t even know where they came spilling out from.

“…You don’t hate me?”

Chaeyeon rapidly shook her head and looked at Moondae with wide eyes, shocked by the very thought of it. “No! I… I could never hate you. You’re my Mommy! You take care of me, feed me, comfort me when I’m sad… and you always try your best. I could never hate you.”

“I could never hate you either, Chaeyeon.” Moondae used his hand to brush the pieces of hair stuck on her face, putting it behind her ear. “I’m sorry for putting you in the situation you’re in. It probably hurts you, for me to tell you to follow my directions but not knowing why you have to follow them.”

Chaeyeon’s grip tightened as she whispered, “It probably confuses and hurts more for you, Mommy.”

It did.

“But it’s okay. Mommy, you always try to be honest with me, and when you can’t, you say, ‘I promise to tell you when you’re old enough to really understand it.’ You also told me that it’s hard for you to talk about some things. You say you get nervous— that you don’t feel good when you talk about some things.”

“I do, at times,” he admitted. Nobody was exempt from that. Moondae felt that about a few things, but they’ve grown tenfold in the past two days.

“…I don’t want you to feel sad or nervous,” she whispered, averting her eyes from Moondae. “I want to ask a lot of things, but I can wait. I’m a big girl now, but… but I can get bigger. And when I’m bigger, I can protect you. And once I can do that, you can tell me what’s on your mind because I’ll be big and strong, and I can protect you from all of the things that make you nervous or sad.”

Moondae felt horrible that his kid, who he was supposed to be taking care of, felt like she had to protect him. “But I’ll be protecting you until then— until you’re big and strong. That’s my responsibility.”

“I never said I didn’t want to be protected…” she mumbled. “I like being in your arms. You feel safe. And even if you end up never telling me, even when I’m big… I’ll still feel that way.”

“…I’m glad you feel safe with me, Chaeyeon.”

“…Mommy, are you crying?”

“…Ah… I didn’t even notice that I was—”

Chaeyeon looked up and saw tears falling from her mother’s eyes. Slowly but surely, they tracked down his cheeks as his forearms trembled, but he still held Chaeyeon firmly. A sense of relief that he didn’t know he needed filled his chest over Chaeyeon’s words. Moondae was being so emotional even though he had never been like this before. Maybe it was because he was in a new body, a new home, and a new family that made him feel so vulnerable. Everything reminded him of his own family, in some way.

Chaeyeon made him feel like he had come home after years of being away.

“You’re a crybaby,” she said as she let go of Moondae. He took in a deep breath as he used the sleeves of his hoodie to brush away his tears. “I like it when you’re a crybaby too, Mommy. I love you.”

“I love you too, Chaeyeon.”

Chaeyeon smiled at him, sniffling and getting some snot on his clothing, but that was fine with him. “Eheh… I’m hungry now after crying that much.”

“You’re hungry after crying? You say that as if it’s a workout,” Moondae said as he started to pull away from Chaeyeon, a distinctive line of snot still connecting them, starting from Chaeyeon’s nose. Chaeyeon immediately raised her hand and patted it around on the kitchen table, finding a napkin

“It is a workout!” she said as she blew her nose into the tissue, the noise ringing throughout the apartment. “An emotional workout!”

“If I’m a crybaby then you’re a crybaby, too,” he stated.

“…Hmph,” she huffed as she crossed her arms. “I am your daughter, so of course I’d be a crybaby too…”

“…Yeah. You are.”

She was his now.

Moondae and Chaeyeon sat in front of the TV with their food, a blanket laid over their legs as they ate. Moondae had a can of beer open, sipping on it as she stared at the TV screen in front of him. Chaeyeon’s eyes were also glued onto it as she sipped the broth of her eomukguk. As for how they ended up there instead of at the dining table, well…

“I want to watch VTIC while we eat.”

“…”

Seriously, even after all of that, she wanted to watch VTIC…

“Fine,” he conceded.

This was how they ended up eating their food while watching all of the members of VTIC participate in a variety show. Apparently this was listed in Chaeyeon’s personal to-do list, since it was a new episode.

“Isn’t he handsome?” Chaeyeon asked as Cheongryeo appeared on screen, answering a question with a bit of humor, a laugh track playing in the background.

Moondae sipped on his beer before replying, “…Yeah.”

He couldn’t deny that Cheongryeo was an attractive man. He was tall, at around six feet, and obviously as an idol, especially as a dancer, he was muscular. As the leader of the group and probably one of the more popular members, a lot of people looked up to him in a favorable light. Out of all of them, did it really have to be Chaeyeon who liked him?

“I really look up to him,” she said as she leaned to grab her plate of tteokbokki, her cheeks puffing up as she shoved a whole rice cake in her mouth. “He’s cool, handsome, tall, and good at dancing… But he works really hard and he takes care of his members.”

“Is that why you’re a fan of his?” Moondae questioned.

“Hmmm,” she hummed. “There’s more than that, too. Mommy, you were a huge fan of his before I could even write. You have every single album up to date. Hehe, I brag to my friends about it~”

Moondae, you were that big of a fan? Enough to buy every single album and important piece of merch of his, even though you reasonably had little to no money for at least the first two or three years of VTIC’s debut? Being a single teen parent on top of being an orphan sounded like a recipe for disaster. Teen parents were already looked down on socially and Moondae didn’t receive that much government funding, and all of the funding that he was receiving for being an emancipated minor stopped when he turned nineteen, a legal adult.

How did he survive until Cheongryeo dropped the money on him? Wasn’t it crazy difficult to raise a kid and be poor?

“Hey, Chaeyeon?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you think about idols in general?” he asked.

“They’re cool!” she beamed. “Idols are so cool!”

“…What if Mommy was an idol?”

“…What?”

Chaeyeon gave him that look, that familiar deadpan look, her mouth slightly frowning, a mix of confusion and disgust mixed into one package. “Mommy, what do you mean ‘if you were an idol’…? Mommy, you— you can’t. Mommy, you have me!”

“Chaeyeon,” Moondae said as he set his beer on the coffee table in front of him and turned his body to face Chaeyeon. He took Chaeyeon’s hand in his. “I need you to listen to me, and I need you to trust me. You and I are a team now.”

“…Okay.”

“Let’s make a deal.”

“A deal?” she tilted her head in confusion.

“Yeah, a deal,” Moondae said with a nod before taking a deep breath and looking at Chaeyeon with a hundred percent seriousness. “Chaeyeon… Mommy needs to become an idol.”

Her jaw dropped.

“‘Needs’?! M-Mommy, do you know how you sound right now?! Being an idol at this point?!” Chaeyeon was completely exasperated, side-eyeing the TV screen before looking at Moondae. “Mommy, it’s dangerous. Idols don’t have kids, a-and how are you going to even become an idol?!”

“I’m going on an idol survival show. I’ve already been confirmed.”

“…Huh…? H-How and when? W-Wait, which one?!”

“Idol Inc.”

“Mommy!” she yelled. “Mommy, that show?! Even I know about that show!”

“It’s my only option,” he said. “Chaeyeon, I might sound insane—”

“Because you are!”

“—And my words might not make a lot of sense, but you need to trust me,” Moondae pleaded with her. “I can’t do this without your cooperation. Chaeyeon, I can’t explain to you why I need to do this, but I will tell you at some point. You need to trust in me.”

Chaeyeon went silent as the sound from the TV kept going, VTIC finally doing their performance. She looked at the TV, her eyes blown wide. She watched Cheongryeo dance with a smile on his face.

She couldn’t believe this was happening.

She hung her head low before she looked back at her mother with determined eyes.

“…Okay. Okay, tell me what you need me to do.”

Moondae had already put down the pieces before Gunwoo had woken up in his body. Chaeyeon’s existence was protected, Moondae lived like a ghost, and all of his contacts had been cut. There was nothing to grab onto, and it gave Moondae a fighting chance to debut.

First of all, Chaeyeon filled her schedule up with her after-school, which she was oddly happy about. Moondae had never heard of a kid that was genuinely happy to be put in a classroom and made to study for hours on end, but he was having a lot of firsts after moving into this body.

“I always took classes with Minji, but I never got to be with her for a long time, since she took more classes and more hours than me,” Chaeyeon explained. “I get to spend more time with her this way!”

Second of all, whenever Moondae had to leave for long periods of time, Chaeyeon was going to have a nanny to watch her.

“A nanny? But I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself! You’ve left me alone at home before,” Chaeyeon complained.

“Chaeyeon, I doubt that I’ve left you at home by yourself for more than eight hours.”

“…”

She couldn’t argue with the truth.

“The nanny is only going to care for you at night and in the morning— she’ll make dinner, sleep in the house, make breakfast, and get you to school,” he explained. “I can’t leave you alone for your own safety. What if something out of your control happens, like a fire or an earthquake? I can’t protect you if I’m not here. This is why we’re filling up your schedule as much as possible, so you won’t have to stay alone for long periods of time. …You can also sleep over at Minji’s as well, if she’ll let you.”

“Really?!”

“If you can get her parent’s permission.”

“Yayy!” she cheered.

The last and the most important thing was that they had to keep their stories consistent. They were uncle and niece, he took her in when she was three years old, he had legal custody, and they’re both orphans. This was something he already knew about, but he had to make sure this became his default and not something that he had to actively switch to, which was harder than he anticipated. Chaeyeon was already a master at this— this was her default. Even then, Chaeyeon didn’t really even need to be a master at it since she could just lie and say that she didn’t remember things past a certain age, but she knew it anyway.

What mattered more was him learning how Moondae acted in the past.

“No, Mommy!” she scolded. “You were a VTIC fan from their debut! You stan Cheongryeo, so you have to study everything about him to be accurate!”

Moondae apparently had lived like such a ghost that the only thing she ever talked about with other people when it came to Moondae was that he was a VTIC stan, worked hard, and made delicious food. He apparently didn’t interact with other parents very much, and the only thing people knew of Moondae was from what Chaeyeon told people. Obviously that wasn’t a lot, but those were the most notable details. Apparently his high school life was so paltry that even Chaeyeon knew nothing about it. It made sense— he was a high-schooler when he got pregnant, so he obviously had to be hush-hush during that time as well.

‘Almost ten years of hiding up and covering this secret,’ he thought to himself. ‘Maybe even more.’

“You didn’t have a lot of friends, Mommy,” she said. That was putting it lightly. He didn’t have any friends at all. “It made me sad, but I hope you make a lot of friends on the show!”

Moondae felt like he was a student studying for university exams with the way Chaeyeon was grilling him over his fandom knowledge. Pen and paper, he was actually being tested. How did a girl with only eight years of life experience know so many hyper-specific details about VTIC…?

“Do you think Mommy acts a lot differently from how he did back then?” he asked, hoping for an honest answer.

“Hmmm…” Chaeyeon thought about it for a second. “Personality wise, you’re still the same! There are some differences, but you still feel like Mommy.”

Ouch. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked that sort of question about the original Moondae… But if their personalities were similar, he could continue acting as himself without anybody noticing.

With all of this set in place, Chaeyeon and Moondae were now a team. They had to work together if Moondae was going to get through this alive, and trusting an eight year old was a tall ask. Still, he had no other options. Chaeyeon was going to be his partner in crime.

Day one of filming for Idol Inc. arrived.

In an empty set, seventy-seven men were aimlessly waiting around for the shoot to start. Moondae looked around and could immediately tell that he was, in fact, the oldest contestant here. A majority of the people here looked to be in their early twenties or teens, while Moondae was in his mid twenties. He still looked pretty young despite this, but Gunwoo knew the additional truth— he was actually twenty-nine.

“You’ll be our oldest contestant,” Ryu Seorin said to him ten days prior at the broadcasting station. “As for your residence, if you were to debut with your special circumstances, T1 Entertainment is still figuring out the logistics of it. Don’t worry, if you debut, it’ll be figured out by then.”

Essentially what that meant was that they had zero hope for him. In their eyes, Moondae was meant to be some tragic character of sorts and then exit the show. That wasn’t going to happen. He was going to debut; his life depended on it. The only good thing about him debuting would be the fact that he’s a single caregiver of a child and would still be by the time he’d need to enlist.

‘At least I don’t have to go through mandatory enlistment for a second time,’ he thought to himself. That was the one good thing about his situation, at least.

There were a lot of other things he was told about and had to sign off on, like the fact that all the participants were required to take pheromone suppressants and blockers, regardless of their secondary sex. There was also a law that prevented companies from outing your secondary sex to the public with your consent, so Moondae was going to just not comment on it during the duration of his career.

There was also another problem.

“I see that you’re an omega, Moondae-gun,” Ryu Seorin said, tapping the back of her pen against a piece of paper. It was the application he filled out for the show. “You’ll have to take heat suppressants if you get them during filming. When was your last heat?”

“…Eight years ago,” he admitted.

“…Eight years ago?” she questioned. “Do you have a medical condition?’

“I have an irregular heat cycle. I haven’t had one in over eight years, and I don’t experience any pre-heat or heat-like symptoms either,” he stated. Moondae had his health records up-to-date, likely for Chaeyeon’s sake as well. It seemed that after he and Cheongryeo parted, he stopped having heats altogether. “I don’t think I’ll ever get heat during filming, but I’ll be sure to carry emergency suppressants on me.”

“Right,” Ryu Seorin said as she wrote this information down. “I wouldn’t recommend you use heat suppressants, though. You aren’t supposed to take them if you haven’t had a heat or rut in two years, so I can’t imagine the health effects it’ll have if you take one eight years after not having one. As long as you stay on the pheromone suppressants and blockers, you should be fine. As long as you aren’t attracting anyone while you’re in heat and you can’t smell anyone, we can send you home early so you can deal with your heat on your own.”

Being in a survival show was a lot more complicated than he expected, especially as an alpha or an omega. There were too many factors to take into consideration.

“Excuse me, hello!”

Moondae turned his head and saw a kid who looked to be a middle-schooler. Seriously, they were letting people this young into the program…? It felt wrong creating social connections with someone who was essentially a baby in his eyes. In four years, Chaeyeon would be in middle school, and that was too close.

“Did you apply here by yourself?” the kid asked.

“Yes, I did.

“Oh wow, me too! Ah, sorry, could I ask how old you are…?”

“I’m twenty-five years old,” he replied.

“A-Ah, I see, hyung!” the kid replied back, obviously taken aback. “Do you have an agency?”

“No, I don’t have one.”

“Ah, that’s right— usually in Idol Inc., there are some cases when the agency comes out and offers you a deal. In that case, what company were you originally from—”

“I haven’t had one since the beginning.”

“Oh…”

The kid’s eyes quickly averted from him and his facial expression turned bitter. He quickly ended the conversation and approached another person to poach for information and allies. The sudden loss of sincerity was interesting, but that kid was going to have to control his facial expressions on camera if he was going to succeed. It was more of a shock that a middle-schooler was so actively malicious and scheming, but he showed nothing on his face.

“Let’s move the set!” a staff member shouted out as chattering amongst the participants continued as they all started to move to where they directed. Moondae waited and watched all of the participants get their ranking, and by the middle of the session, he finally got his chance to perform.

“Participant, please introduce yourself.”

“…My name is Park Moondae. Please take good care of me,” he said with a bow.

Silence filled the judges table for a split second before a chuckle resounded from one of them as they asked, “No, I mean, is that all?”

What else was he supposed to say, exactly?

“Yes, I don’t have any relevant experience,” he nodded seriously

Laughter broke out among the judges as they whispered to each other, their mics obviously picking up their remarks. Moondae contained a sigh as they asked for him to put on his performance.

To be frank, it was shocking. He improved by a crazy amount in the span of ten days, and he was sure that the writers were looking at him like he was crazy.

“Songs you should sing?” Chaeyeon questioned. “Hmm… VTIC! VTIC is always a good choice!”

Sorry Chaeyeon, but there was no way in hell he was going to sing anything by VTIC. Moondae had already crossed out every single one of their songs on his list out of principle. After thinking on it for a while, he managed to land on one. Chaeyeon didn’t seem to know the song at all, since it was by a member of T-Holic, which was past her generation, but she seemed impressed by his vocals.

“Whooaaa!” she clapped as Moondae finished singing. Chaeyeon was sitting on the sofa with her legs crossed, a familiar teddy bear on her lap. Moondae was currently in front of the TV, putting on a performance at her request. “Mommy, you’re so good at singing! Well, you’ve always been good.”

“Always?” Moondae questioned, slightly embarrassed. “…You’re just saying that to be nice.”

“Noooo!” she exclaimed, as she slid off of the couch and propped her teddy bear up neatly. She ran over to hug Moondae, her eyes sparkling. “You used to sing pretty lullabies for me when I was a baby. I still remember it!”

How could you say ‘when I was a baby’ when you’re still a baby…?

Either way, the judges were just as impressed as Chaeyeon was. They all complimented him and Moondae bowed, inwardly clenching a fist in victory.

“The choreography you did just now wasn’t that difficult; could we see more of your dancing?”

Shit.

Moondae had leveled his singing up all the way to A, because why wouldn’t he? Maxing out your vocals was a good idea, especially because he could solidify his position as a main vocalist. There were numerous dancers, but someone with strong vocals was hard to come by. He could cover up his bad dancing with practice, but vocals would always stand out. He was hoping that the judges would get swept up in the atmosphere of his singing and not ask about his dancing but of course the worst case scenarios always happen to him.

The person who proposed the question was Youngrin from SaintU, a female idol whose group garnered success after a fancam of her smiling and doing acrobatics went viral. She was still unknown at the time, and it was during the rainy season as well. Youngrin was the first ever idol that made him realize that selling their data could be profitable.

‘I’m the one who filmed that fancam, after all,’ he thought to himself.

“I understand you haven’t received any formal training,” Youngrin said as she leaned forward in her chair. “But because this is the first evaluation, I’d like to see all of the basics that you have to offer. If you participated in an audition program, I think you would’ve prepared at least one song.”

“Yes, I do have a song. Is it possible?”

A staff member beckoned him over and Moondae told him the song. After a few seconds Moondae got into position and the cheerful and campy accompaniment started to play. The judge’s eyes widened as he took his stance.

“Ahahahah!” Chaeyeon was laughing hysterically, splayed across the couch as her small face started to turn red. He could see the small mole underneath her right eye when she laughed like this, her eyes scrunched together. “M-Mommy— Ahahah! Y-You’re so funny…!”

Moondae’s face was completely deadpan as he stayed in the final pose, breathing heavily. Moondae was not fit whatsoever. He was pretty skinny, actually, and his stamina definitely wasn’t on par with most people his age. “…Chaeyeon, you’re the one who said you wanted me to dance this.”

“A-And I was right— pwahahaha—! I was right! Mommy, you’re sooo funny!” she cried laughing.

The reactions from the judges were almost identical to Chaeyeon’s, their faces contorting as they tried to hold in their laughter, though it was unsuccessful. One of the judges spat out his water and another one’s face turned red from laughter, small tears in his eyes. Youngrin seemed to be the only one taking him somewhat seriously, tapping her pen to the beat of the song as she examined his simple footwork.

It was ‘POP☆CON’ by Marshmallow. It was released ten years ago and it was so addicting that it had to be banned during the CSAT period. It was so bad that numerous students failed during the listening portion because the tune and lyrics were stuck in their heads.

Chaeyeon was the one who recommended it, but she was right to do so. It was a song from ten years ago, and the choreography was relatively simple. Moondae was also hoping that the nostalgia factor of the song would make people more open to it. He danced seriously because he didn’t want to be seen as someone who takes it leisurely, but it seemed to have backfired into something completely different.

The choreographer swiped some tears from his eyes. “Whoa, I— Hah! I would’ve never expected this song in a million years. You were fifteen when this song came out, correct? Are you a big fan of them?”

“Yes, I am a big fan of Marshmallow-sunbaenim,” Moondae lied. What he said next was a half-truth. “I’ve been following their activities since their debut.”

“Pfft…! Ahahaha! Ah, wow, as expected of our oldest contestant…”

For context, Marshmallow’s last album was released four years ago, so it was completely within reason for Moondae to have been a fan of them, especially since he was fifteen when they debuted. He probably seemed like some sort of mega fan with that.

One of the judges, Mudie, was cooing at him about how his performance was cute. She was a soloist, and she was going to be their vocal trainer for this season. The male idol judge said that he worked hard.

“But that doesn’t mean you did well,” Youngrin stated. Moondae could already imagine the close-up shots and sound effects that were going to be paired with her words. “First of all, I can tell you don’t have any skills with moving your body. You might receive a positive evaluation right now, but as we progress further, it’ll become more and more difficult.”

“I understand. I’m prepared for what’ll come my way.”

“…Alright then,” she said, her expression relaxing. “You did well today. I can clearly see your effort.”

“Thank you.”

Moondae had said thank you about ten times already, and it showed no signs of stopping. It was better than saying ‘I’m sorry,’ though.

He got assigned his rank (17th, which wasn’t that bad when you thought about all of the other contestants that would push him up and down,) and sat on his seat. The person who was in 15th place greeted him, as he was sitting on the opposite side. He was pretty tall with brown hair, and he definitely seemed younger than Moondae.

“Hello~!” he said in a sing-song voice.

“Hello,” Moondae replied back.

“Wow, you’re really good at singing, hyung!”

“Thank you,” he said yet again. “I think you did really well, too.”

He didn’t even watch his performance that thoroughly, but if he was going by rank, then he obviously did well.

“Hahaha! Really?” he said with a big smile on his face. “Thank you so much!”

He laughed and pointed at his name tag, and Moondae had to control his expression when he read it.

“My name is Lee Sejin!”

“…My name is Park Moondae. Please take care of me.”

“Please take care of me as well, hyung~”

Moondae quickly ended their introduction and turned to the other auditions, his mind whirling with the interaction he just had.

…Wasn’t this guy an eventual drug dealer?

Chapter Text

Lee Sejin was a gambit.

Moondae recalled that Lee Sejin had made an official debut through this program, making it through the debut group. The thing about him was that he clearly remembered the news that he had been arrested on the suspicion of drug distribution. He was in a gukbap restaurant when the nine o’ clock news talked about it.

…He was just going to not talk to him anymore.

A lot of things happened after that. First of all, his charm and dance stats had finally unlocked after performing in front of the judges. He didn’t know what the parameters for them being unlocked were in the first place. Did it need to have a specific amount of people watching in order for it to happen? Chaeyeon saw his practice performance, but she didn’t add to his achievements or stats.

His visuals also ranked up naturally, since he started to take care of himself and his appearance. Chaeyeon seemed to take great interest in the fact that he was washing his face with ‘the fancy stuff,’ like an oil cleanser. Moondae already had a pretty clear face without any acne, which was already an amazing feat. Maybe it was a post-pregnancy afterglow…? Wasn’t that supposed to happen during pregnancy? Also, there’s no way that an afterglow lasts eight years after giving birth…

Regardless, he gained a point from his performance, and that was all that mattered. If he gained two or three more and put them into his dance, he’d be able to keep up with everyone else fairly easily. If D was for someone who was average, getting to a C made him above that.

And then something weird popped into his vision.

[Successful Performance!]

You’e impressed the majority of the audience.

Draw General Trait ◄ Click!

He clicked it while pretending to fix his hair, and it brought him to something akin to a roulette wheel. He saw some of the names of the traits he could pick up before it started to spin rapidly, before slowing down and landing on a trait.

[Trait Obtained]

[Sleep Is for the Dead (D)]

When activated, you will not feel tired, even without having slept.

- Additional 30% increase in exp. acquisition rate from 00:01 AM and 04:00 AM.

- Lasts for one week. One time use.

The trait seemed really useful, but he needed to figure out the best time he should use it. As the evaluation continued, there was someone who stood out to him as he walked out onto the stage.

Seriously, those looks… But if he didn’t end up debuting in the past, then his skills must be absolutely garbage. He didn’t have any way to confirm them, though.

‘I wonder what his stats are…’ he thought to himself as the blond-haired man walked out onto the stage, trembling like a leaf.

[Name: Seon Ahyeon]

Vocal: B- (A)

Dance: A (EX)

Physical Attractiveness: A+ (S+)

Charm: B (A+)

Traits: Fortitude (Inactive)

Status Abnormality: Lack of Self-Esteem

Ah, he could look at other people’s stats. That was good to know.

Despite him having high stats, that status abnormality was troublesome. He thought to himself, ‘Why would a guy as handsome as him have a status abnormality like that?’

The answer became apparent.

“H-H-Hello—”

Ah. He had a stutter.

Moondae watched as Seon Ahyeon admitted the circumstance that led to his stutter, and he could feel the pity and sympathy flood the room. None of them could smell or put out pheromones, but he was sure it’d be an uncomfortable pity party of smells. Moondae kept a completely straight face so that the editing team couldn’t take anything from him, but he faltered when he saw the status abnormality take effect.

All of Seon Ahyeon’s stats dropped by two ranks, making him unable to show his true potential. The entire time, his face looked pale as he trembled. It was quite depressing, to be honest. He managed to place 18th, right below Moondae, which felt like an insult since he should obviously place higher than him. Ahyeon went to sit next to him and he didn’t greet him first, and Moondae didn’t want to either, but…

‘The cameras are on us and I have seniority in terms of age,” he thought to himself. He opted for a small bow instead.

He did not know that this one singular action would have lasting effects.

‘…Seon Ahyeon is stuck to me like glue.’

When they were headed to the dorms, Ahyeon sat right next to him on the bus. He didn’t think of it as a problem as he observed the top ten taking a limousine. He watched as the members that he knew for a fact were in the debut group entered the limousine. Cha Eugene, Kim Raebin, and Ryu Cheongwoo. If he was going to have a higher chance of debuting, he was going to have to stick with them.

…But Ahyeon followed him around like a puppy.

Moondae didn’t necessarily have a problem with it, since it wasn’t as if he was doing anything wrong. If anything, it reminded him of Chaeyeon and the way she shadowed him, watching him as he cooked or cleaned the house.

Still, he should keep his distance. Ahyeon wasn’t bothering him, but he didn’t want to cause any accidental drama by getting into an argument with him.

“H-Hey,” Ahyeon said as he held out something in both of his palms. “W-Would you like some chocolate?”

I mean, he wasn’t going to refuse.

“Sure…”

Upon their training officially starting and being placed into their designated classes, he was given an ‘Advanced’ in singing and ‘Beginner’ in dancing, which was what he expected. There were also people who didn’t get any badges, commonly referred to as ‘Trash Grade’ by netizens. One of the participants who didn’t get a badge… was Lee Sejin.

No, not the other one who greeted him while they were being assigned their ranks. This one was Lee Sejin A, who used to be a child actor. The other one was Lee Sejin B. Now Moondae had to be wary of two different people. It was like a surprise box, except the ‘surprise’ was being presented with a drug dealer. He had zero idea which of the two would end up being the actual drug dealer, and he didn’t remember which of them ended up in the debut group.

‘I’ll just have to stay cautious,’ he thought to himself.

“Now, the song that you will be practicing for the next ten days will be revealed! Do your best to master this song and present it to the shareholders of Idol Inc.!”

What the hell.

The choreography looked simple, but the real hell was the footwork. What the hell were they doing with their feet? Moondae was already familiar with the song itself so he thought that he’d just lock in and study the choreography, but they were already at the chorus and Moondae could feel his soul leaving his body. He quickly grabbed onto it and forced it back into his body as he summoned his status window, a dead look in his eyes.

He was just… not going to sleep.

However, the side effect of not sleeping was the fact that he was starving. Moondae was starting to burn calories because of how much he was dancing. He was so hungry that he was getting pissed at small inconveniences. Moondae’s body seemed to naturally have a harder time putting on weight in comparison to how he was as Ryu Gunwoo. Ryu Gunwoo had a pretty sturdy build; he was relatively tall and more of an average weight. Moondae was a different story. In the ten days leading up to the filming, he didn’t gain very much despite how well he was eating. He was scared that by the time his ‘Sleep is for the Dead’ trait ran its course, he would actually be dead. Moondae was on his hands and knees in the practice room, clutching onto his flat stomach.

‘Moondae, why the hell did you feed Chaeyeon so well but not give yourself the same treatment?!’ he cursed in his head. ‘I’m going to die if I don’t eat enough…!’

“Th-This…” Seon Ahyeon said, approaching him with a chocolate yet again. “W-Would you like this, hyung?”

Damn right he did.

Moondae took it with a ‘thanks,’ his hands trembling as Ahyeon placed it gently into his hand. Moondae began to weakly rip open the plastic wrap around it

“I-I also have more, s-so feel free to let me know i-if you want some…”

Moondae took a bite of the chocolate and he immediately felt energized. Sweet things were good for your energy. “Umm… Can I ask how old you are? I’m twenty-five.”

“H-Huh?! O-Oh, I-I’m twenty years old…”

As expected. He didn’t know why he was surprised; he knew he was the oldest participant here. “Ah, you’re really young… I feel bad for relying on you, but I hope you don’t mind it. Feel free to come to me anytime as well.”

“…! O-Of course, h-hyung!”

He was making friends with a kid who was nine years younger than him, and it definitely felt weird, but it was the best course of action. He needed someone to rely on here— he couldn’t just be a loner. You needed allies on these types of shows, and Ahyeon wasn’t a bad pick whatsoever. It ended up being a better decision than he thought.

He couldn’t think the same for a few other participants. Mainly this one kid who kept trying to be passive-aggressive with him. As it turned out, the kid’s name was Choi Wongil— the one who first approached him when they were waiting to start filming. ‘Not a middle-schooler,’ Moondae thought to himself. Wongil was apparently in high school.

While Moondae was getting praised in his vocal class, which was also filled with the other gold grades, the kid seemed to hold a massive grudge against him, which was weird since you would’ve expected them to have more solidarity. Although, he could sew the rivalry set-up as well. Both options were unnerving to him.

He’d keep up appearances, but knowing this kid’s personality and his inability to control his face, he was going to get eaten up by the audience. It was a bit sad, but what could he do? Moondae couldn’t help if Wongil hated him. The vocal trainer had inadvertently pitted them against each other. She asked Wongil to sing and sighed, cutting him off early and telling Moondae to take over. The vocal trainer, Mudie, then praised him for going in the exact direction she wanted. It made Wongil bitter.

“Wongil, you should sing it like this, okay?” Mudie said as she nodded and gestured to Moondae.

From then on, whenever he had a vocal class, Wongil was intent on being incredibly passive-aggressive. Moondae wasn’t the only one who got this treatment; Wongil also managed to get on people’s nerves with his vague and roundabout words, and you couldn’t get mad at him for it or else you’d seem like an asshole for ‘misconstruing’ his words.

“Wow, I’m glad you got praise for your singing again, Hyung-nim!” he said with a shit-eating grin. “You have to hurry up and come up from the Beginner Dance!”

Wasn’t he also in the same situation?

“Your vocals really suit a pure song like this since they’re kind of amateurish!”

…Moondae wouldn’t beef with a kid that was more than ten years younger than him.

‘He needs to watch his expressions or else the cameras might catch him,’ he thought to himself as he walked away from Choi Wongil.

When it finally came to the grade evaluation, Moondae was sat next to Ahyeon since their ranks were right next to each other. The first thing he noticed was the lack of a ceiling as all of the participants were sitting down. It seemed that the shooting was about to start, but it still felt odd.

“…Why is there no ceiling?” he mumbled to himself. Ahyeon turned his head to Moondae with a slightly confused expression before startling slightly as a loud creaking sound echoed throughout the set, the white walls surrounding them crashing to the floor. In front of them were the judges who also seemed to be confused.

‘They must be acting,’ he thought to himself as the MC stepped up and unleashed hellfire onto the contestants. It was going to be an open evaluation… starting from the lowest ranks.

‘It’s a vicious method,’ Moondae thought to himself, watching as the rank 77 contestant’s name was called, his voice trembling as he said that he didn’t remember the dance. The lower ranks were being culled off immediately. ‘I have to maintain a poker face.’

He questioned why somebody would join an idol survival show knowing that they didn’t have enough skill. Did they really expect to be a part of the debut group? It seemed like a logical fallacy— unless they were really delusional enough to believe that they could get through until the end— or maybe their agencies forced them to participate.

The treacherous skill level of the lower ranks kept being displayed until there was the shocking underdog performance… by Lee Sejin A.

As the judges complimented him for his hard work and effort, Moondae began to wonder if this one was actually the Sejin that ended up in the debut group. Either way, he needed to be wary of both of them. He needed to avoid contact with them as much as possible without seeming like he was actively dodging them.

Ahyeon did his performance pretty well, as he expected. The status abnormality was still taking him down, but even with the negatives to them, he was still a lot more skilled. Ahyeon wished Moondae good luck as he walked onto stage, passing the baton to him. Moondae awkwardly thanked him— he wasn’t used to someone sincerely wishing him good luck, especially with a face like that.

When Moondae walked up onto the stage and got into position, he knew that they were going to be thinking; ‘He’s going to be good at singing and bad at dancing.’ He couldn’t blame them, either. In a regular person’s case, ten days isn’t enough time to show massive amounts of improvement. The last dance class he had was only two days ago, and his skill level was roughly the same back then, so he’d actually had to have improved massively in just those two days. There would always be people who are more skilled at one thing than the other, and some people just pick up on things easier than others, but that wasn’t exactly Moondae’s case.

He perfectly executed the beginning turn, his clear and sharp vocals piercing through the air as the choreographer who had ripped into him in front of the cameras not too long ago looked at him with wide eyes.

Moondae had the power of his status window.

He had put all three of the points he had saved up and accumulated into his dance, increasing it to C+ rank. He had a natural D+ in dance and a C in charm, which was pretty shocking. But then again…

‘That guy’s an idol,’ he thought to himself as he kept powering through the choreography and rather effortlessly hitting the notes. ‘They probably danced around and sang with each other.’

Moondae couldn’t confirm it either. Well, it was more like he didn’t want to confirm it. He had left the rest of the videos and photos untouched, especially the ones on the other extra SD card that he found with the camera. To be honest, he was dreading the day where he was going to be forced to open it up and watch them. It just… It didn’t feel good. He didn’t want to watch them and experience all of the dread once again.

Even while slightly distracted, he managed to hit the ending pose perfectly, showing off the symbol of a stock graph with his fingers. He breathed heavily, sweat dripping down his forehead as he looked toward the judges with fierce eyes. They seemed shocked at his sudden improvement, yet also proud.

‘Isn’t an underdog type of narrative the best?’ he thought in his head as he straightened himself out, still catching his breath as the choreographer grabbed his mic with a smile.

“Moondae-ya.”

Moondae nodded through his breaths and said, “Yes?”

“…Good job.”

Moondae was clenching his fist in victory in his mind, but on the outside, it just showed as a slight smile. They all started to praise him and that there was nothing for them to criticize, although the choreographer posed a very important question that he knew he was going to have to answer.

“By the way, Moondae-ya, what the hell did you do in two days for you to get that good?”

Mudie looked at the choreographer with a slightly confused look. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“How can he dance so well all of a sudden? We haven’t seen each other in two days, and yet he improved this much…”

“That’s—” Moondae began to say. He had to act as if he was embarrassed so that the cameras captured him more. “Well… That’s because I asked a good friend of mine to help me with the dance.”

“A friend? Who?”

“Seon Ahyeon.”

It was the perfect excuse. Making friends with Seon Ahyeon explained how he got better at dancing all of a sudden. It also showcased Ahyeon a bit better, so maybe he’d get some exposure. He… didn’t really know if it’d do anything, though. Ahyeon never made a debut in the past, so he didn’t know the chances would be like now.

“…Ahyeon has been very kind to me,” Moondae stated. He needed to throw in some fluffy words.

“Hey, are you saying I haven’t been kind to you?”

The judge panel laughed. Moondae managed to have his open evaluation end up positively. Even Youngrin, who had told him he’d have a rough time in future missions because he wasn’t good at dancing, smiled and took back her words.

“I think what I said was wrong,” she said. “Park Moondae-ssi, you overcame it even though it was difficult. I hope you can dance more relaxedly next time.”

“Yes, thank you.”

It was his win.

After everyone went through their evaluations, the participants were culled down. Those who didn’t even make the cut to get bronze were eliminated. Moondae knew he did well. He was predicting he’d probably get a gold, maybe a silver at worst. He made an impression on the judges, so he was pretty confident.

…And then he got a platinum badge.

How the fuck does this happen.

Moondae really had to have made that big of an impression… It was most likely due to the order that the grade evaluations took place that he ended up looking so good. The middle and lower ranks were expected to be relatively mediocre or not have anyone that jumps out, so Moondae being in a higher rank really benefited him.

Ahyeon and Lee Sejin B fonded over his new shiny badge.

“Whoaa, a platinum badge! It’s platinum!” Sejin cheered. “Moondae-hyung, that’s seriously so cool! Wahhh, amazing~!”

“H-Hyung, g-good job!” Ahyeon complimented. The two of them had gotten gold badges.

Moondae rolled it in his hand before putting it on, joining the other contestants as they got ready to rehearse the theme song. Moondae made sure to get in position, staying away from the good dancers so he wouldn’t be compared to them. Those who were platinum grade as well as an A in their dance stat were placed more at the front, while Moondae was placed a little further back, next to Lee Sejin B.

“Aren’t you a little disappointed?” Sejin asked Moondae. Moondae wasn’t trying to get buddy-buddy with him, but he wasn’t going to act unfriendly either.

“…Not really,” he replied.

“Whoa, really? I would’ve been really disappointed,” he said as he looked forward to the other Platinum grades.

“…It’s because you’re good at dancing.”

“Huh?”

“I’d be disappointed if I was you, since you’re good at dancing,” he said truthfully. Lee Sejin was an A- in dance and a C+ in vocals. If he hadn’t sung his high notes a little out of tune, he probably would’ve been a platinum grade instead of Moondae.

Lee Sejin hummed and smiled at him before saying, “Thanks!”

Well, at least he seemed pleased by the praise. Just as Moondae was about to say something else, another voice introjected.

“You can’t dance?”

It was Cha Eugene, the original first place winner for Idol Inc. He was rather tall, around six feet tall, and he had flaming red hair. He had a naturally cheeky expression on him, and he asked the questions so innocently and without ill-intent that Moondae was a little shocked. The cameras and mics were on, yet he didn’t seem to be watching his words. How did someone so blunt manage to take first place?

Moondae gave him a polite smile. “You didn’t get to see my performance?”

“We were all so focused on getting ready for our own that, so I wasn’t really watching anybody else that closely.”

That made sense.

“Next time, you can see my performance and judge my dancing for yourself.”

“That sounds good,” Cha Eugene said with a nod before turning his attention back to the front. Lee Sejin laughed a little, taken aback by the interaction he just witnessed.

“He has a unique way of speaking. Maybe it’s because he grew up overseas…?”

“Perhaps,” Moondae said, unconcerned. “I don’t really mind it.”

It felt like when he talked to Chaeyeon. She was a pretty blunt person as well.

“Rehearsal will begin soon!” he heard from a staff member. There were numerous people milling around with cameras focused on them. Moondae took a deep breath and shook out his limbs. He needed to save his energy— it was only six in the morning and the main performance would be filmed at 4 PM. It was going to be a rough one.

Moondae came back home late, after 9 PM. He had planned on getting home earlier than he predicted, but he should’ve known that overtime hell existed everywhere, especially in an idol show. The nanny should be gone by now and Chaeyeon was probably asleep, so he was quiet as he walked up the steps and put his key in.

His body was heavy after dancing and singing all day. He woke up early and rehearsed all day, ate a paltry lunch of gimbap wrapped in silver foil, and then hell had resumed. Moondae wanted to collapse on the floor, but all of the other participants had filled the space, leaving him to prop himself on his knees. He was twenty-nine years old, dammit. Moondae’s stamina also wasn’t very good. Dancing in place for so long made him feel like he was suffering from a heatstroke.

His plan was to try and increase his stamina and get some muscle on himself. Moondae was a pretty skinny guy. He had a small waist, and he wasn’t insanely skinny, but you could see some of his ribs. Moondae could already see the upcoming debate and speculation of whether he’s an omega or a beta. To be honest, Moondae really could pass as either or, even though his stature could be seen as stereotypically omega.

He sighed as his keys jangled, a warm heat settling inside of him. Moondae felt tired, and his body still felt hot from practice. He wiped the sweat off his forehead as he unlocked the door. Moondae had the door half-opened and heard frantic footsteps approaching. They sounded cushioned and soft, running down the hallway, before he heard a small yelp and then a thud less than a second later.

Crap.

Moondae quickly swung open the door and yelled, “Chaeyeon!”

He tossed off his shoes and turned the corner, only to see Chaeyeon on the floor in the middle of the hallway, rubbing her lower back with some tears in her eyes from the pain.

“Oww…” she hissed out. Moondae sighed and quickly put his bag on the floor and approached her, immediately guessing what happened.

“Chaeyeon, I told you not to run in socks,” he scolded as he helped her onto her feet. She grunted as she straightened her back out. She was dressed in a light pink nightgown with a pair of white socks.

“I know…” she grumbled as held her arms out and hugged Moondae. “I was so excited to see you though! Heheh, how was being an idol, Mommy?”

Moondae started to take off his jacket and patted her head, using one arm to hug her back. “I did well. I’m not going to spoil you on anything— we can just watch the episode together next Friday.”

“I’m super excited~!” she said with a giggle as she took her mother’s jacket and hung it up for him. “Have you eaten yet?”

“Have you?” Moondae asked.

“…No…” she admitted. “I was too excited, and I told the nanny I wasn’t hungry, so I haven’t eaten yet…”

Moondae was too tired to cook. “…Let’s just order in…”

The two of them ordered fried chicken. Moondae decided to treat himself by also ordering it with a draft beer, while Chaeyeon got herself Chilsung Cider. It was his treat for finishing his first week of filming and Chaeyeon’s for being a good girl while he was gone. The two of them tapped their yangnyeom chicken together and said ‘cheers!’ before taking a bite.

“Seriously, no spoilers at all?” she asked as she chewed on her chicken and pouted. “None? Not even one? Not even a tinyyyy one?”

“Do you really want a spoiler that badly?” he questioned. Moondae didn’t think his experience was all that interesting, but Chaeyeon kept staring at him with bright eyes and a smile on her face.

“My mommy is gonna be an idol!” she exclaimed, her legs swinging underneath the table. “Of course I want a spoiler! Were your clothes really pretty? I bet you looked really cute, Mommy!”

“I wouldn’t call myself cute,” Moondae said, blushing a little bit. “I wouldn’t call the clothing that cute, either. It looked similar to a school uniform, or an army uniform. All of the contestants were dressed the same way.”

“A spoiler!” she said, pointing at him. “That’s a spoiler! You just said a spoiler! I think you’re saying you’re not cute because it’s a spoiler too! You’re always cute, Mommy!”

“…Fine, I guess I’m cute.” He decided to just accept it instead of denying it. Chaeyeon wouldn’t stop calling him cute no matter what he said to retort it, so he was just going to accept his fate.

“And what else?” she said with a cheeky grin.

“…?”

“‘I guess I’m cute,’ and what else? Don’t tell me you forgot this, too!”

What else would he say…? Something a mother would say to their daughter…

“…But you’re cuter?”

“Eheheh~” Chaeyeon looked blissful at the words. “Thank you, Mommy. I am cute, aren’t I? It’s only because you’re my mommy! I got it from you.”

Moondae didn’t know how to respond to that. He wasn’t really used to conversations such as this, where compliments were exchanged back and forth, especially when they were honest and pure. Chaeyeon meant what she said.

“…Thank you,” he replied back. “I’ll try and become an even cuter idol, then.”

“I can’t wait to see all of the outfits you get to try on~” she said dreamily as she sipped on her soda. “I think you’d look really pretty in all white! Or pink! I think you’d look really cute in pink!”

“Why pink?” Moondae questioned. “I think I’d look better in blue.”

“Noooo!” she said. “Pink is a cute color! I want to see you wearing a cute pink! It’s the best color, after all.”

Chaeyeon’s favorite color was pink, noted. It made sense; she had a lot of pink clothing, and a lot of her stationary was pink as well.

“…I’ll see if I’ll be able to wear pink at some point, then.”

It was a request from his daughter. What was he supposed to do, not take it into consideration? It was pretty doable as well, so if there was an opportunity, he’d probably ask for it. Moondae didn’t have anything against the color, either. Chaeyeon did look cute in it, so maybe she was right that Moondae would look good in it as well.

‘I never thought there’d be a day where I’d be called cute,’ he thought to himself. Ryu Gunwoo wasn’t really cute— an average person, really. Park Moondae had a young-looking face that exuded more cuteness than Ryu Gunwoo, which wasn’t really saying much. Maybe he was just biased, since it was ‘his own’ looks that they were talking about.

They talked about each other’s weeks as they ate, like how Chaeyeon was doing at school, if Moondae got any better at dancing (Chaeyeon insisted that this be answered), and any other thing that came to mind. It was nice to casually talk about your day with someone without having to worry about what you say and how you say it. Obviously Moondae had to say it in a way that was understandable and kid-friendly, but he didn’t feel like he was walking on eggshells around Chaeyeon. He could say something honest and explain something honestly, and Chaeyeon would listen.

‘I wonder if this is just a natural trait that she has,’ he thought to himself as Chaeyeon bit into a piece of chicken. A holographic skin appeared in front of him and Moondae almost choked on his beer, startling Chaeyeon.

“Mommy?! Mommy, hey, breathe!” she said as she passed a napkin over to him. Moondae coughed as he took it from her, his eyes still on the status window.

[Name: Park Chaeyeon]

Vocal: C (S-)

Dance: C (A+)

Physical Attractiveness: B+ (S-)

Charm: C- (A+)

Traits: I Trust You! (C)

Status Abnormality: -

[Trait: I Trust You! (C)]

Your love and support overflows for those you care for. You believe in them and who they are.

- Effectiveness of encouragement and support +100%

- Chance of Activation: 25%

…Hey, Moondae… Did you manage to give birth to a natural idol?

Seriously, what were these stats? They were insanely good. She’s only eight years old and she was already a C in both singing and dancing. Wait, why did she have her charm and dancing stat unlocked already? The only thing he could think of was maybe a school performance.

“Mommy?” she questioned worriedly, her face pale. She quickly got to her feet and took a few steps away. “Mommy, are you choking?! A-Ambulance—”

“I’m— cough— I’m fine, Chaeyeon. It just went down the wrong pipe,” he said as he held up his hand, stopping Chaeyeon in her tracks. She slowly sat back down, concern still written on her face.

“Are you sure?”

Moondae coughed into his napkin a few more times and cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“…Well, okay then,” she said as she wiped her fingers off on a napkin.

“…Why do you look disappointed?”

Chaeyeon pouted even harder. “I thought I’d be able to rush in and save the day if you were choking.”

…Moondae, why was your child wishing for you to be suffocated…?

“Next time,” he said as he started to pack the dirty napkins and trash inside of the empty box of fried chicken. He wasn’t going to even touch what Chaeyeon said— he already knew she was a weird kid.

“Yay!” she cheered. “You know, I’ll always save you no matter what happens! I’m always on your side.”

“…!”

[I Trust You! (C)] activated!

(Chance of Activation: 25%)

-Target: Park Moondae

-Effect: Effectiveness of encouragement and support +100%

…It felt nice, to be honest. Even though he knew why it felt so nice, he couldn’t help the steady thrum in his body and how relaxed he felt. He was aware of what just happened and why, but he didn’t really need to fight it or anything.

“…Mommy will always be on your side, too,” he said.

Chaeyeon giggled and sat in Moondae’s lap, hugging him and holding him tight as if she were a koala. He finger-brushed her hair, strands of shiny, silky black hair falling between his fingertips. He felt her heartbeat against his, steady and warm. Why wouldn’t they be on each other’s side? They were a team.

The next morning, Moondae’s body felt hot. His core felt like it was melting and he restlessly moved around in the blankets. He didn’t want to disturb Chaeyeon’s sleep, but it was just so hot. Sweat clung to his skin, especially on his legs. He let out a heavy breath, his mind feeling muddled. Fuck, he was definitely sick. A whole week of practice had taken a toll on his body.

Moondae felt the urge to peel off his clothing, his hand snaking underneath his shirt to start pulling it off, but he shivered as soon as his fingers made contact with his skin. He could barely think right now. It was so hot. It felt like his insides were burning. He pressed his thighs together and pulled his legs up, feeling uncomfortable yet not knowing why.

“Mommy…?” he heard Chaeyeon ask as she pushed herself up with her arms and leaned over him.

Chaeyeon saw that his hair was clinging to his face from the sweat and his eyes were hazy, as if he wasn’t fully present. She softly asked, “Mommy, are you okay? You look like you’re sick. Do we need to go to the hospital…?”

“Huh…?” Moondae questioned through his feverish stupor. He looked at his daughter and, wow, she really was cute. Cute eyes, cute face… It made him want to have another.

What?

Moondae lifted himself up out of shock, the blanket falling off of his body. The cold air made him shiver and he suddenly felt something slowly drip out of him, coming from… from his ass. He then realized that it wasn’t just sweat covering his inner thighs, it was slick.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

Chaeyeon gasped a little bit at the sudden curse word. Her mother almost never swore in front of her, unless it was urgent! She looked incredibly shocked as she stuttered out, “I-Is it bad? Is it really bad?!”

“No, Chaeyeon, I’m fine—” he started to say, his head hanging down. The uncomfortable and unbearable heat in his lower body started to get stronger, Moondae biting his lip as he pulled his legs closer to his body. Fuck, this was really uncomfortable. He could barely formulate a thought, let alone speak. He felt like his head was a mess, and the urge to take off his clothing grew more and more the higher his temperature rose. He wanted someone to touch him and get rid of this feeling— he wanted to be comforted and held close.

“I’m just—”

“Just what?! Are you dying?!”

“No, Chaeyeon, I’m not dying,” he told her firmly. Did Chaeyeon even know what this was? Had she been taught in school or told by Moondae yet? “I’m just—”

He took in a deep breath, his body twitching and pulsing as his slick began to pour out, a desire taking over him. Carnal and instinctual, he wanted a pair of hands to hold him down and take him. The problem was that he shouldn’t be imagining that person doing it, but he did.

“…I think I’m in heat.”

Chapter Text

Embarrassment flooded Moondae as soon as the words, ‘I think I’m in heat,’ came out of his mouth. How did any omega deal with this sort of thing? He felt so empty right now, and he wanted something nice and warm to scratch the itch he had inside of him. It was burning hot.

“Heat…?” Chaeyeon questioned quietly. “But, Mommy… I-I thought you didn’t have those.”

He thought so too. Moondae hadn’t had a heat in seven years, so why was this happening to him right now? Moondae clutched his stomach with his hands, his body feeling more sensitive than usual.

Omegas and alphas tended to present during puberty, around the ages of thirteen to seventeen, with the exception of dominant alphas and omegas, who are detectable at birth. Dominant alphas and omegas are born with their unique reproductive systems and don’t develop them later in life. For example, dominant female alphas are born with a penis and dominant male omegas are born with a uterus. After presenting (going through their first heat or rut), alphas and omegas go through either ruts or heats respectively every three months. They last for a week without a partner, and it gets cut down to three if you have someone to assist you.

In Moondae’s case, he hadn’t had a heat for the past seven years, around the time when Chaeyeon turned a year old. Moondae predicted this was around the time that Cheongryeo left him. His cycle was severely irregular for him to not have had a heat in over seven years. He was a healthy adult, yet he wasn’t experiencing any heats.

‘It’s probably his fault again,’ Moondae thought to himself as he laid back down on the bed, suppressing a small moan as he shifted his legs underneath the blanket.

“…Hey, Chaeyeon, do you think you could get yourself ready for hagwon today?” he questioned. “I’m not feeling well. I’ll make you something to eat, at the very least.”

“I can get myself ready! I’ll just eat something at the convenience store on my way, so don’t worry!” Chaeyeon said as she frantically scrambled out of bed and pulled the blanket over her mother, securing him safely inside. She brushed the hair out of his face and frowned a little. “Mommy, does it hurt? Should we get medicine?”

Moondae felt his heart throb. Wow, yeah, his kid was really cute. “…No, I’m okay. Sorry that I can’t take you today.”

“It’s okay, Mommy! Get some rest, okay?” she said.

“What time is it…?” he questioned

“Oh! It’s…” she trailed off as she picked up her phone and checked the time, her eyes widening. “10 AM! I have to go soon, we overslept…!”

Moondae watched as Chaeyeon started to rummage through the dresser, pulling out a black skirt, black tights, and a pink sweater. She set it aside and ran into the bathroom, likely to wash her face and brush her teeth. Moondae let out a small sigh, the fog in his getting stronger and stronger until he couldn’t fight it anymore. It was an odd feeling. He was aware, he could speak, and he was still himself, yet it was a different part of himself that took the forefront. Something that was more needy and vulnerable— that craved love and affection. He closed his eyes, feeling his cock slowly harden in his boxer-briefs, slick slowly starting to coat the fabric.

There was no way that Chaeyeon could see this. He pulled the blanket closer to him to cover up his body more, opening his eyes slightly to see that Chaeyeon was already fully dressed. Huh? He swore that she was just in the bathroom… Was his sense of time messed up as well? Everything felt like it was going too fast yet too slow at the same time.

“I’m gonna get going, Mommy,” Chaeyeon whispered as she leaned down next to Moondae and pecked him on the cheek. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours, okay? Make sure to eat, and take fever medicine. And stay cool!”

She began to leave his side when Moondae’s hand suddenly latched onto hers. She looked back at her mother confusedly, seeing the small tears in his eyes. “Mommy?”

Moondae caressed Chaeyeon’s knuckles. She was so small and yet she was so strong. This was his baby. He didn’t even know what he was saying, but they felt right on his tongue. “…I love you, baby. Stay safe, okay? I love you.”

Chaeyeon gave him a sweet little smile that made him feel complete as she squeezed his hand back. “I love you too, Mommy.”

Moondae gently released his grip from Chaeyeon after hearing those words, watching as she rounded the hallway’s corner out of her view. He heard the click of the door, the turn of a handle, and then the closing of it. He covered his eyes with his hands, labored breaths coming from him as he kicked the blanket off of him.

Moondae never had this sort of sensation crawl up his body before. To be honest, Gunwoo had never had sex with anyone before, though he always pictured it’d be with a woman. He was a beta male who had never been comfortable enough with anyone to share that level of vulnerability, so he went twenty-nine years without holding anyone. That wasn’t a bad thing— Gunwoo was content with his life, with or without a partner. However, this was a different situation. He was moaning with need as he thought of hands trailing down the sides of his waist, slowly removing his underwear and shorts. He thought of something filling his insides up to the brim to get rid of the ache he was feeling, heat pooling into his stomach at the sensation.

Moondae didn’t even know if he was into men or alphas— he always assumed he’d get with a beta woman— but here he was, his fingers twitching, trying to hold himself back from touching himself. He never fingered himself before, and to be frank, he never even thought of putting anything inside of him. He was a beta, but… he didn’t mind it. It didn’t feel wrong, but it was definitely unfamiliar.

Moondae crawled out of the bed, taking the blanket with him. Not in the bed— he shouldn’t stay in the bed. That’s where he and Chaeyeon slept, and he wasn’t going to defile it. He needed his own space. He walked his way forward, not really knowing where his body was taking him, but by the time he blinked, he found that he had pushed the coffee table away and put the blanket down right in front of the couch.

“Fuck…” he breathed out as he stood back up again, his legs shaking. He crawled over to the dresser and pulled open the drawer where Moondae stored his clothing. The folded clothing inside became not so folded anymore as his hands dug around for something. Moondae didn’t know what he was trying to find, his instincts guiding him as he eventually found a baggy black shirt. He then took it out and set it to the side, digging deeper into the dresser, pulling clothing that he had never seen before. A pair of sweatpants, shirts of varying sizes, a hoodie— all of them too big for him. Still, he collected them and walked over to his blanket and plopped himself on it, the clothing he had gotten spreading out around him.

They were old, but mostly unused. There was something familiar about the way they looked and the way they felt on his skin, pulling it closer to him as he took in a deep breath. There wasn’t really any scent on it, but… But there was something very faint if he concentrated on it. The smell of dark coffee, slightly acidic with a full-body roast. Moondae preened at it, his slick dripping out of his hole.

‘…Am I nesting…?’ he thought to himself, some clarity hitting him. Despite this clarity and awareness of his actions, he couldn’t control himself as he pulled his shorts and underwear down, a black hoodie pulled up to his face as he kept inhaling the traces of a scent that was long gone. This was probably Shin Jaehyun’s clothing, from seven years ago. Unwashed, folded, and kept in the crevices of Moondae’s dresser.

He was wet, his hole leisurely dripping slick. Moondae’s underwear was covered in it, sticky and all sorts of unpleasant. He pulled it off of his legs and tossed it to the side alongside his shorts. Moondae’s breath hitched as he put his index finger to the rim of his asshole, warm slick coating it. He let out a heavy breath, his cock half-hard as he inhaled the traces of Jaehyun’s scent. Jaehyun wasn’t his alpha, he was Moondae’s, but his body craved him nonetheless. He closed his eyes and imagined it was Jaehyun’s finger, slowly inserting a digit inside of him.

“Hahh…” he breathed out as he clutched the hoodie closer to him. Jaehyun wasn’t even here— in fact, he should hate him. Hate him for leaving Moondae, abandoning his family, causing a downward spiral so severe that Moondae killed himself— but Moondae still imagined his face. It didn’t help that there were things all around him that reminded Moondae of Jaehyun. Albums, photos, and the TV in front of him made him remember what the idol looked like. Sharp eyes with long eyelashes, dark hair swooped to the side, and a sturdy frame that would definitely support him, no matter how unsteady Moondae was.

It was killing him inside.

His insides were pliable, but one finger wasn’t enough to satisfy him. Moondae slowly fingered himself, the wet sounds coming from his ass making him feel hotter. It was embarrassing, yet he continued. Short moans and breaths escaped from his lips as he closed his eyes and put in another finger, starting to scissor himself.

“Ah… Hah…” His cock was fully hard at this point, dripping pre-cum at his tip. His face still against the hoodie, he let go of it and put it on his weeping cock. He grit his teeth as he wrapped his fingers around it and started to pump it. He arched his back as he fingered himself, adding in a third finger to reach as deep as he could inside of him. His eyebrows knitted as tears started to form in his eyes, the stimulation driving him crazy.

He curled his fingers slightly, and a shocked moan escaped his lips, a shudder traveling through his body. Moondae opened his eyes, blissed out and confused at what just happened. He brushed it again and another moan escaped his lips as he clamped his thighs together.

“Hahh… Fuck…” he groaned out, his body shaking. That felt good, but he couldn’t fully hit it. It was too far up for his fingers to hit, only able to brush against it when he pushed them up to the knuckles. It made heat pool in his belly, the itch deep inside of him getting scratched. He continued, moans falling out of his lips effortlessly as he continued to jack himself off, his hands wet from his slick and pre-cum. He imagined what it would be like if it reached deeper inside of him; to be so full and satisfied that he couldn’t care about anything else.

He imagined a cock buried deep inside of him, overwhelming in its presence yet oh so filling. Every part of him would be filled up as a punishing grip took hold on his waist. Moondae felt dirty for imagining something like this happening to him, especially because he knew the exact object of affection. He hadn’t experienced sex before, but Moondae had. Would Jaehyun be rough with him, fucking him until the only thing coming out of his mouth was his name? Or would he be gentle, slowly pressing down on his cervix, filling him to the brink? The pressure would be so lovely. Would his knot make it so he could have another kid? If they were just like Chaeyeon, he wouldn’t mind.

“Ah…” Moondae moaned, inhaling that scent once again. Dark coffee. Smooth, warm, yet rough. He wanted to be filled up completely. He wanted to be pushed down and fucked until he couldn’t remember anything. He wanted to taste Jaehyun’s mouth and scratch at his muscular back as Jaehyun rammed into him. Moondae wanted to bite into his neck. He wanted his womb to get filled with his cum over and over again.

“Ah…!”

Moondae shuttered, his spilling across his hand and onto his stomach, his insides clenching on his fingers. He cried out, his toes curling as he experienced the most intense orgasm he’s ever had. He let out heavy breaths as he calmed down from his high, resting his body down onto the plush blanket and comforting clothes.

This wasn’t right. No matter how much he tried to reason it out, this wasn’t right. He was getting off to someone else’s mate, who abandoned him, and he was fucking himself on his fingers while imagining his cock. He felt pathetic, yet even though he felt so disgusted with himself as tears pricked at his eyes, that itch inside of him persisted. He felt like he could do this forever and he still wouldn’t be satisfied.

Heats were awful, he concluded. A period of wanting and feeling like he was starved, yet never being full. His cock became hard again as he inhaled the lingering scent of dark coffee around him, so faint that it was immediately overpowered by his own scent. Vanilla, strong and heady, communicating that he wanted to be pressed down and fucked into oblivion.

Moondae fell into an inescapable hell of wanting to be wanted, yet never having the warmth of it. Bitterly, angrily, his wet fingers entered back into his warm body, curling to hit that delicious spot that made him feel delirious.

‘When is this going to end?’

He knew the realistic answer— it’d be a week of this, and it was always more intense during the first couple of days. Most omegas calmed down enough to function like normal near the end of their heat, but it felt like eternity for Moondae. He kept imagining Jaehyun’s body on top of him, making it so he couldn’t escape from his hold, his cum dripping out of his hole.

He felt so depraved and dirty. He tried to not think about him, but trying to not think about him looped back around to him thinking about him even more.

This was how Moondae ended up completely naked, sweat covering his body as he fingered himself with his right hand and trailed his other hand up to his chest to pinch his nipples. He grit his teeth, a small and quiet moan escaping as he rolled the small bud between his fingers. He wasn’t even thinking, he was just doing it. Moondae would’ve never in a million years touched himself like this, but here he was, his back arched as his fingers brushed his sweet spot over and over again.

He completely lost track of time, his sole focus on getting rid of this heat, yet never being able to do so. It was only when his phone buzzed from the nightstand that he realized hours had passed. He hadn’t eaten anything or had anything to drink, not even thinking of anything else than satisfying his craving. He pulled himself up, his slick dripping from his hole as he got to his feet. Moondae looked down at his hand, covered in all sorts of innocuous fluid of his own making.

“…I’m so fucked.”

Moondae was, indeed, fucked.

Exhausted wouldn’t be an apt descriptor for Moondae’s current plight. He was breathing heavily on the soft blanket and all of Jaehyun’s clothing was flush against his body. Moondae had gotten enough strength to take a shower to get off all of the sweat and slick on his body, but he ended up not being much better there either. He pressed his head against the wall of the shower as he thrusted his fingers in and out of his hole, imagining Jaehyun’s hands caressing his body.

He was drained, mentally and physically. Were all heats like this or was Moondae’s exceptionally worse because it’d been seven years since he last had one? Either way, he walked out of the shower, pulled on a fresh pair of underwear (and stuffed it with toilet paper so his slick wouldn’t leak through), pulled on one of Jaehyun’s shirts (the smell of dark coffee was starting to drive him insane, to the point he instantly got hard when he caught a whiff of it), and looked at his messy nest. He let out a frustrated sound, mixed with grief and exhaustion as he lifted the blanket off and threw it into the laundry, grabbing a clean blanket from the linen closet in the washer and dryer room. He laid it out and piled all of Jaehyun’s clothes on it before collapsing into it. He was trying so hard to not touch himself, as if it’d make it any better, leaving him a frustrated mess. It was enough to make him cry and Moondae was not a crier, so it was pretty bad.

He buried his head in the blankets, his breaths hitching as he wrapped his hands around his stomach. He wanted this to go away, fuck, this was horrible. All he could think about was his hole being filled and how much he wanted kids, and even though Moondae had birthed a child, Gunwoo literally couldn’t do that. Yet here he was, wishing he was bred full of them, in a body that wasn’t his, living a life he had no real control over.

He had his phone in his nest and decided to try and distract himself from the urge to slide down his underwear and do unspeakable things to himself, only for his WeTube recommended page to jumpscare him with Cheongryeo’s face. It was a fancam, he knew that, but a pang of arousal went straight through him and he nearly screamed into the blanket.

He heard the click of a lock. Moondae pulled his face away from the blanket, his tears making a significant wet spot. He turned his head over to the sound and saw Chaeyeon quietly and delicately walk in, almost tip-toeing.

“…! Oh, you’re awake, Mommy!” she said in a whisper-yell. She was holding some kind of take-out plastic bag. She could immediately tell what kind of condition her mother was in and frowned. “Mommy… Mommy, you look really sick…”

“I’m okay,” he lied as he sat upright, ignoring the trickle coming out from him. He wiped his tears and sweat off of his face. “…What about you? How was it at hagwon?”

“It was okay,” she said as she bounded forward and approached Moondae’s nest. Moondae held his arms out for Chaeyeon to fall into, which she immediately did. All of a sudden, everything felt right in the world. His kid was here with him, safe in his arms. “…I was worried about you though, Mommy, so I did some research online.”

He hoped to whatever god was out there that she didn’t stumble onto a restricted website.

“…I didn’t do anything gross like that,” she said, looking up at Moondae with puffy cheeks as she set the take-out food to the side of her mother’s nest. Chaeyeon looked slightly offended. “You said I’m not old enough for that, so I wouldn’t go there.”

“…Did I say that out loud?”

“You did,” she confirmed as she hugged Moondae close. “But I trust you to tell me things that are good for me, so I wouldn’t do that.”

“…What did you even research?” he questioned as she shimmied out of his hold and stood up for a second to pull the coffee table closer to them. She then put the bag of takeout on top of it and opened it up, revealing two plastic bowls with lids on them. Chaeyeon pried off the lid, and with a bit of effort, it came off, the smell of jjamppong flooding his nose.

“I wanted to know how to help you, since you’re sick,” she said. “Or well, not sick. Apparently heats are supposed to be normal, but you didn’t have them for a long time, so maybe you’re just weird.”

Harsh wording.

“Anyway, I looked it up, and it said that omegas in heat should eat lots and stay hydrated!” Chaeyeon said as she grabbed the take-out chopsticks and snapped them perfectly in half, handing it to Moondae. “You haven’t eaten, have you?”

“…No,” he said. “I forgot.”

“The article I read said that omegas forget to do that a lot during their heat,” she said as she snapped her own chopsticks. “It also said that omegas like to spend time with their families or other people that they consider close to them during their heat, so here I am!”

“Mhm. I’m glad you’re here…” he said as he pulled himself close to Chaeyeon, wrapping her in his arms. He had such a perfect baby that wasn’t his, and she was so smart and kind. He really had the best kid ever. Now that his pheromone receptors were dialed to eleven, he could pick up Chaeyeon’s pheromones. They were usually faint since she hadn’t presented yet, but the slightest tinge of it was more potent now. It smelled of chocolate milk. Bubbly, sweet, and happy— it gave off the feeling of satisfaction and content. He rested his head on her neck and unconsciously started to scent her, protecting her with a comforting veil of vanilla.

“Eheheh, it tickles when you do that!” she giggled as she mussed up Moondae’s hair.

Heats were atrocious, but when it was with Chaeyeon, it wasn’t as bad. As long as his baby was safe in his arms, he felt like he could get through it.

“Mommy, eatttt,” she whined, dragging out her words. “You’re gonna dieee if you don’t eatttt!”

“Right…” he trailed off, his head still foggy as he lifted his head from Chaeyeon’s neck and leaned over the coffee table, slurping up the noodles. The soup was comforting. If he had to eat anything tedious like ssam wraps or crab, Moondae would probably give up as soon as he saw it.

“…Thank you for thinking of me,” Moondae said as he put his chopsticks down, suddenly feeling emotional.

“…?! Don’t cry, hey! Hey, don’t cry, Mommy…” she said as she held onto his hand, a slightly shocked and nervous expression. “Mommy, don’t cry…”

It was too late.

Why was this so difficult? Why was Gunwoo dropped into this body— this specific flavor of hell? Was that really his punishment for selling data on idols? It felt like he was lying to Chaeyeon, and that’s what made it feel worse. Chaeyeon shouldn’t be thinking about him, she would be thinking about the real Moondae, her actual mom. Even though he had told himself he was Chaeyeon’s parent now, it still crushed him.

A child without parents.

…He couldn’t allow that for her.

“…I always think of you,” she said softly as she leaned her head on Moondae, clutching onto his hoodie. Jaehyun’s hoodie. “I always think of you because you’re important to me.”

In a way, her parents were there. They were there, just… not present.

The smell of lingering dark coffee, chocolate milk, and vanilla rested in their small apartment.

Moondae let out a soft breath as he leaned his head on top of Chaeyeon’s. He felt so drained, but he had no other choice but to keep his gaze firm and steady.

“…I always think about you, too.”

Even when he didn’t have the right to do so.

The week continued on as expected. Moondae was a complete and utter mess every single day due to his heat; biting onto the old hoodie to keep it up to his nose as he jerked himself off, small whimpers coming from his mouth as he reached a climax for the umpteenth time. Whenever Chaeyeon left for school, he’d completely fall at the seams, as if the last thread of his sanity that kept him grounded to logic had snapped. As soon as his daughter was gone, he became completely drowned in his unending fever.

Whenever she came home, Moondae felt a bit more normal, though he obviously knew he wasn’t. They got ready for bed, ate food, and after that, they’d snuggle in Moondae’s nest while watching videos until she fell asleep. He always made sure to pick her back up and put her into the bed so she slept better before returning to his nest.

Moondae, without even realizing, would press himself against Chaeyeon’s scent gland and smother her in his pheromones. In general, he became a lot more mushy for her. He’d admire every single thing she did, the way she had a cute button nose, the mole underneath her eye, the way she smiled… It was endearing. It was also completely horrifying that his heat-addled brain made him admit it outloud to her. Moondae felt his logical side and his omega instincts duking it out at every single moment, which was probably why his heats were so painful to deal with. If Moondae just let himself get overcome by his heat, he was sure that he’d have a much better time, but he couldn’t let himself do that. It just didn’t feel right to do it.

Once it reached the fourth day of his heat, the itch residing inside of him was still uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable that he had to keep scratching at it. He could ignore it for a little bit, at least, before it flared up again. He could finally be a bit more of a functioning person, like taking care of house chores and doing research about heats.

He had gotten the most family-friendly rundown of alphas and omegas, as well as how their heats and ruts were, in elementary school. In high school, they got the ‘big kid talk,’ but it obviously still wasn’t very in depth, considering sex was still considered a bit of a taboo in the Korean education system. In Gunwoo’s case, he didn’t pay attention to the part about alphas and omegas at the time because he thought that it simply didn’t matter to him. He was a beta and he would subsequently probably end up with someone who was also a beta. He was now regretting his decisions.

Omega heats tended to have two phases that they went back and forth between: the Activity Phase and the The Activity Phase referred to when an omega was fully in the throes of heat and was hellbent on getting mated and bred. Following the Activity Phase is the Affection Phase, which was essentially the cooldown period for an omega. They became more affectionate and needy, wanting to be pampered and cared for. This was usually the time where an omega acts very affectionate towards their partner, children, or other important people in their lives. The lines between these two phases can be easily blurred, but that’s how they’re usually separated.

Moondae came to a soul-crushing realization that he’d been oscillating between these two phases as if it was clockwork; when Chaeyeon was gone v.s. when Chaeyeon was home. Knowing that this was what he was doing didn’t make him stop, though.

Moondae had already informed Idol Inc. that he had gone into heat for the first time in seven years during the break and that he’d be carrying heat suppressants on him for the duration of the show, which he immediately got cleared on. It was now Friday— a whole week had passed and Moondae was finally at the tail-end of his heat, just dealing with some mild sensitivity on his chest and a fever.

“I get to see you look pretty!” Chaeyeon cheered as she ran at mach speed into Moondae’s nest, completely displacing the numerous pillows and pieces of clothing he had placed in a very particular way. He didn’t even know why he placed it like that, it just felt right. Even though Chaeyeon messed his nest up, he couldn’t get mad at her. Chaeyeon’s hair was still wet and her skin felt warm from the shower. Moondae clicked his tongue and wrapped the towel she had dropped around her head before pulling the rambunctious child into his lap.

“Hey, don’t run around with wet hair— you’re going to get sick,” he said as he started to dry off her hair with the towel. He took care in making sure that she was comfortable as he brushed back damp strands of hair. Chaeyeon began to smooth out the wrinkles she made in the nest with her hand as she hummed a little tune, putting things back in place, just the way Moondae liked it.

‘I’m going to be taking heat suppressants for the rest of my life,’ he thought to himself, a dead look on his face. ‘Fuck the medical drawbacks… If I see that bastard Cheongryeo’s face again, I might just have to see if there’s a surgery to completely get rid of my heats.’

Moondae damned Cheongryeo in his mind and his stupid face. He was beyond pissed that he kept thinking about him every single time he was shoving his fingers inside of him in his horny delirium. He wasn’t even that handsome (Moondae knew that he was a liar.)

The two of them turned their attention to the screen as they waited for the broadcast to start, the comments section flying on the right side of the screen. Should Chaeyeon even be reading these types of things…?

“Mommy in a pretty outfit, Mommy in a pretty outfit~” she sang gleefully and rocked back and forth in Moondae’s lap as he finally deemed her hair dry enough.

The first episode of Idol Inc. Relisted! began.

[“All shareholders! Do you remember the last delisting?”] Youngrin addressed the audience passionately. [“Everyone, for making your stock into pieces of paper— I’m so incredibly sorry!”]

Large subtitles started to scroll across the screen as Youngrin bowed

[※This is an apology from the production team. Youngrin isn’t guilty of anything.※]

[※We are still accepting claims for damages on our website.※]

Chaeyeon and Moondae both blanked, their faces deadpanned at the text that flew by. Chaeyeon turned her head toward her mother, her face still stony and unexpressive.

“…Mommy, it isn’t too late to drop out, right…?”

“……”

If only he could.

Chapter Text

Chaeyeon and Moondae watched the comment section blow up with people who were equally as confused as the two of them. Chaeyeon leaned her head onto Moondae’s chest and mumbled, “Are they crazy…?”

Moondae was wondering that as well.

Youngrin, with the same conviction, continued to address all of the viewers about how this time, everything would be in the shareholder’s hands. From the amount of people in the team, people on it, and even the people that they wanted gone… It was all up to them.

[“Our company’s life or death is dependent on you…! Idol Inc. Relisted! is starting, now!”]

The camera then panned up to display all of the platinum grades, their choreography smooth and precise. The stage in the shape of a bright star illuminated their faces as they sang, the camera moving to display the other grades, revealing the gold grades, the silver, and then the bronzes.

“That’s you!” Chaeyeon exclaimed excitedly, grabbing Moondae’s arm and shaking him when it panned over him for a few short seconds. “That’s you, that’s you! You got a platinum badge, oh my gosh! Oh my gosh, Mommy, you’re so pretty!”

Moondae could at least be happy over the fact that he had an automatic number one fan. If Chaeyeon had her own source of income, she’d probably buy every album, photocard, and as many live events of his as possible.

The comments kept scrolling past, with some of them having scathing remarks about either the contestants or the song. Chaeyeon moved her face closer to the screen to read any of the comments about her mother… Only for there to be nothing of note.

“…?! Nothing?! Not even a ‘wow, he’s so pretty~’ or even a ‘wow he’s so ugly~’?” she complained.

“You’d be satisfied if someone called me ugly…?”

“It means that at least someone was paying attention to you!” Chaeyeon crossed her arms and flopped backward into Moondae before sliding all the way down until her head was resting in his lap. “This sucks, Mommy! You looked so cute in your uniform and nobody cares…”

“But you care,” Moondae commented as he brushed her bangs away from her eyes. She still had her arms crossed, pouting and getting angry on his behalf.

“Yeah, of course I care…” she grumbled. “You were cute…”

Moondae let out a small laugh. “You’ll see a lot more of Mommy in the future wearing cute things. Don’t worry about it too much— I’m planning on making it to the debut group.”

“Hmmm?” Chaeyeon questioned with a small smile. “And I get to be the kid of an idol?”

You already are.

“You will. Doesn’t that sound cool?” he asked. Chaeyeon nodded before going a little bit silent. The air turned somber and her pheromones took on a slightly bitter tinge.

“…I prefer you being my Mommy, though,” she whispered. “I want to call you Mommy, not just at home.”

Oh.

“…I know,” he said. “I want you to call me Mommy wherever we go, too. No hiding, no embarrassment; I’d just be Mommy.”

“But we can’t,” she said.

“…Yeah.”

“Because of Daddy?” she questioned, looking up at Moondae, a bit of hesitance in her voice. She was watching his expression to see how he reacted, as if she were walking on eggshells.

Moondae didn’t want her to feel like that. Moondae didn’t want to talk about Cheongryeo either, but it was something he would need to tell her eventually. He wasn’t going to let her go her entire life not knowing who her dad really is.

“…Yeah, because of Daddy,” he admitted. “It’s better for me and you to not be called mother and daughter outside of the two of us because Daddy has an important job that makes it hard for him to be with us.”

“…Okay,” she said, setting the topic down rather quickly. “I understand.”

A bit too quick for his liking, but he couldn’t pry her for anything else. It was a sensitive topic for both of them, so Moondae just hummed in acknowledgement as the trailer for Idol Inc. Relisted! started to play. The drama, the antics, the suspense, as per usual. Chaeyeon’s face lit up dramatically every single time Moondae appeared, even if he was there for a split second, she would point her finger at the TV with an excited expression. It seemed to be her way of trying to move past what just happened, her smile and her antics energetic, but strained.

They decided to wrap it up since Chaeyeon had to go to sleep in order to wake up for her academy in the morning. Moondae had other things to do as well, like training just a small bit before filming… and also monitoring the public’s reaction. He laid in his nest, probably for the last night, as he scrolled through forums and message boards.

- park moondae was soooo cuteee!! i watched the stage again but the camera didnt give him a lot of screentime ㅠㅠ but i watched the trailer, and it seems like he did well on the ranking stage, so i’m thinking about watching it!!

- park moondae is getting alll of my stocks

It was a unique experience to read about yourself. Not only that, but it was shocking that anybody would ever spend their time and money on him, just because he seemed likable. Moondae hummed in thought as he adjusted some of Jaehyun’s clothes, casually trapping them in between his legs as if they were a body pillow.

[The beginning of fame!]

You made an impression on 1,000 people!

Draw General Traits ◄ Click!

When the slot machine appeared in front of him again, he had no qualms in spinning it. The trait he pulled last time saved his ass.

[Trait Obtained]

[Come to Think of It, You’re Right (C)]

Your words will move your audience

- Chance of activation: 35%

- Activated by default

Moondae put his face in his hands as he whispered, “What the hell am I going to use this for…”

Either way, after seeing the reactions to the video, he knew what he had to invest in next.

‘If Chaeyeon thinks I’m cute and pretty, I guess I’m going to have to make it a reality,’ he thought to himself before putting a point straight into his physical appearance.

On the day of filming, Moondae was met with hell. In front of him were multiple famous idol agencies, a ball with the number ‘12’ in his hand. Out of all of the agencies, of course LeTi had to be there. He really didn’t want to choose out of a moral principle because Cheongryeo— but he compressed his rage. He needed to think about it from an objective standpoint; the agency didn’t matter, the teammates did.

Moondae heard the numbers being called one by one before he felt a looming presence behind him. Moondae turned his head to see Lee Sejin B staring at him. He had a beseeching look on his face, and Moondae spoke first.

“…What?” he asked, only realizing that his tone was a little bit cold only after he had spoken. He quickly spoke again to correct his mistake. “Do you need something from me, Lee Sejin? I’ll listen to you.”

“Hyung…” Lee Sejin begged with a half-whine. “By any chance, could you not push me out if we choose the same agency~? Pretty please, hyung?”

Lee Sejin B asked him with puppy dog eyes, despite the fact he was several inches taller than him. Moondae was standing at 5’8” and he was trying to pull aegyo on him. It wasn’t working, sadly. He knew somebody much cuter who did it better. She could also debatably do it more cringy than Lee Sejin, too.

“…Lee Sejin, you’re Gold.”

“And you’re Platinum!” Sejin exclaimed. “Platinum can push out Gold!”

Moondae sighed. “I won’t push you out.”

Lee Sejin smiled at him cheekily. “Really~?”

This brat.

“…Yes, really.”

“You’re so cool, hyung! Thank you~”

Don’t get close, dammit. He couldn’t get buddy-buddy with him, for his own safety and his daughter’s.

Moondae’s name was eventually called and he walked toward the one that had the best lineup so far. Sadly it was LeTi’s, the one agency he didn’t want to pick. There were already two gold badges, and even if he got a VTIC song, he’d just have to live with it. The team composition mattered more than the song.

‘I’d be pretty happy if it isn’t a VTIC song, though,’ he thought to himself as the two people who were already there before him started to get giddy with excitement.

“Ohh, it’s a main vocalist! Nice, nice!” the one with brown hair said.

The one with light blue hair looked at him with bright eyes, beckoning him forward with his arms. “Welcome, welcome!”

Their names were Ha Iljoon and Kwon Heeseung, if he remembered correctly. Both of them were dancers, so Moondae didn’t have to worry about overlapping positions. As long as they kept getting high-ranked participants, they’d be on the right track.

“Next is… Ah, Participant Lee Sejin A!”

…Hey, why was he coming in Moondae’s direction?

The two gold participants tried to welcome him, but the actor Lee Sejin simply turned around and stood behind them. It was a bit of a misunderstanding, and he was sure the editors would absolutely eat this footage up later. He could already feel himself descending into the flames of hell. There was an express lane waiting for him, he knew it. Still, he remained polite. He gave Sejin a small bow in acknowledgement, which Sejin returned. It was… slightly uncomfortable, but he couldn’t place a finger on it. They couldn’t even kick him out, because a bronze participant joined right after.

Eventually they started getting some great contestants, such as Seon Ahyeon, Lee Sejin B, and even a Platinum rank like Ryu Cheongwoo. The team was looking pretty solid up until one of the silver grades got pushed out.

Enter Choi Wongil.

Surely this would all be fine. The team could definitely work— Wait, why were they being separated into teams of seven? Whose numbers were those?

“…” Moondae said nothing as they all grouped together. Ha Iljoon, Kwon Heeseung, Seon Ahyeon, Lee Sejin B, Lee Sejin A, and Choi Wongil were the team composition. They had lost the Ryu Cheongwoo to the other side. The atmosphere of Moondae’s team was very contrasting. There were three sides: quiet, bleak, and energetic.

Lee Sejin B tried to lighten-up the atmosphere by assigning himself a nickname for everyone to call him moving forward, since it’d be confusing for there to be two Lee Sejins on the same team.

“Alright, then I’ll be Keun Sejin!” he exclaimed after he took Gold 1’s (Ha Iljoon’s) suggestion and ran with it. “Oh, hyung, since you’re an actor… How about Bae Sejin?”

“Oh, that’s nice!” Gold 2, Kwon Heeseung exclaimed. “Sejin-hyung, what do you think?”

Lee Sejin A fiddled with his fingers for a second before responding with a flat tone, “…I like my name as it is.”

Silence spread through them for a half a second too long before Keun Sejin quickly tried to refresh their moods. Moondae could hear the flames getting closer; the demons wanted to pull him down.

…And then the song.

‘…At least it isn’t VTIC,’ he thought to himself as Marshmallow’s To a New World popped up on the roulette. He just didn’t expect for there to be LeTi’s girl group there among VTIC. Still, the problem was getting the tone of the song correctly when almost all of them were grown ass men trying to do a song with a flower fairy concept.

Still, Moondae tried his best. Even when Wongil wanted his part, he gave it to him. I mean, he was significantly older than him— he should let the kid take it. He wasn’t going to let Wongil step all over him, though.

“Okay, then I’ll do the bridge part,” Moondae said as he crossed out the area on the pen that said Wongil’s name, replacing it with his own.

“Yes?”

“It’s better for us to change parts,” he explained. Moondae knew the kid just wanted to be greedy, so he had to make it seem like he was being reasonable in front of the cameras. “You said you couldn’t hit the high notes, right? It’s better for me to take it instead.”

He watched as Choi Wongil nodded his head reluctantly, desperately trying to hold onto the part yet letting it go. Moondae didn’t understand why he was clawing at it so hard, but getting a silver must’ve made him more desperate.

They practiced the choreography and learned the song without rearranging anything, deciding on leaving it to their instructor’s opinions on how they should go forward. The evaluation ended as Moondae expected— poorly.

“I thought you majored in modern dance. Why is it that you’re worse than Park Moondae in terms of expression?” the choreographer scoffed as he looked at Seon Ahyeon. He then gestured to Moondae with his hand and crossed his arms. “I mean, come on. He’s even better than you at singing. Even if we cut the slack now, do you think people will be so nice to you after you debut? Isn’t it embarrassing for you to hear me say that you dance worse than someone chosen for vocals?”

Moondae wanted to look at the choreographer as if he was insane. Out of all of them, Seon Ahyeon fit this concept perfectly. Not only that, but Ahyeon was the one who learned and taught the majority of the dance. He saw Ahyeon just take it with a pale face as he simply accepted the backlash, his hands trembling.

Ahyeon had been his rock throughout filming, if he was going to be honest. He didn’t mind Ahyeon following him or sticking by him, because to be honest, Moondae would do the same. Ahyeon was quiet and kind, and it was a big reason as to why Moondae lingered around him. The other members of their team were either too energetic or too gloomy. Ahyeon, however, was somebody he could sit next to in comfortable silence. It was a plus that Ahyeon also gave him snacks every so often (although after what happened during the first week of filming, Moondae decided to pack his own.)

After Moondae managed to sidestep Keun Sejin’s suggestion and bring his own to the table, they all began to practice with their new concept in mind. Keun Sejin was a lot more cunning than he expected. He knew how to watch the cameras and pick out the correct timing to bring up plans and ideas. Moondae needed to watch out for him.

Moondae sighed as he stretched out his back before looking over to the wall where Ahyeon was sitting against. Ahyeon was sitting by himself with a million things swarming in his mind. It made Moondae feel uncomfortable. This wasn’t the type of ‘silence’ that he enjoyed. At this rate, Ahyeon’s status abnormality might never let up, and Moondae knew that he had to step in. It was for the sake of their team and their performance, after all.

“…Are you tired, Ahyeon-ah?” he asked as he sat down next to him.

“…! N-No, I’m okay, hyung.”

As if Moondae would ever believe that in a million years.

“Then is it because of what the choreographer said to you?”

“…! I…I’m sorry! I-I promise t-to work extra hard!” Ahyeon said, looking at Moondae. His anxiety was palpable. If they all weren’t taking pheromone suppressants and blockers, he’s sure that Ahyeon’s would be filling the air.

“There’s nothing to apologize over,” he said. “Don’t apologize for something when you haven’t done anything wrong. The choreographer only said what he said to try and push you to do better— you’re better than you think you are.”

Ahyeon was silent for a little while before whispering hesitantly, as if he didn’t even want Moondae to hear it. “…D-Do you really think… that I can do better?”

“…Why do you think I’d lie?’ Moondae asked.

Ahyeon swallowed his saliva and looked at Moondae, his eyes half-lidded, trying to avoid direct eye contact. “Th-Then h-h-how can I improve…?”

“You’re asking me?”

Ahyeon nodded enthusiastically.

Moondae was probably the worst person to ask. He was the person who literally started from nothing and only worked his way up thanks to the system. He also wasn’t the best at dancing; he’d only just managed to reach a passable degree. Still, he only struggled so hard because he had death lingering over him. That was definitely a motivating factor, but… there was another one. A girl with a bright smile, a small nose, and long eyelashes, who he needed to protect. Moondae was all she had, and it was all Moondae had, too.

In the span of a few weeks, Moondae had grown attached.

“…You think too much,” he said honestly. “If you have a goal, you just have to think, ‘I’m going to do it.’ If you want something to happen, you have to think that you can make it.”

Ahyeon was silent for a whole before finally meeting Moondae’s eyes and nodding. “…O-Okay, I’ll try it.”

[Come to Think of It, You’re Right (C)] activated!

(Chance of Activation: 35%)

-Target: Seon Ahyeon

-Effect: When activated, successfully persuades the target.

[Name: Seon Ahyeon]

Vocal: B- (A)

Dance: A (EX)

Physical Attractiveness: A+ (S+)

Charm: B (A+)

Traits: Fortitude

Status Abnormality: Lack of Self-Esteem

[Fortitude (A)]

You are who you believe.

- Suppresses negative thoughts by increasing level of concentration to the max.

- When activated, cancels one status abnormality (highest priority).

Moondae said nothing as Ahyeon kept mumbling to himself over and over again, ‘I can do it…!’ A smile started to tug at his lips as he leaned back in his seat and let out a content breath. He had done it.

‘This better be worth it.’

And it was.

On a dark stage, a creepy melody entranced their audience, pulling them into their voices. They had expected a VTIC song to be chosen, since it was LeTi’s signature group. Most of them were offended that they’d even try to cover a VTIC song, but when they saw ‘Marshmallow’ instead, the reactions became confused instead.

‘That’s fine,’ Moondae thought to himself as he clasped his hand onto Lee Sejin’s, his clear voice piercing through the venue.

‘You don’t need VTIC.’

Ahyeon gracefully extended his arms, taking the front of the stage as his elegance made itself clear. Without any constraints, he was now performing at his very best. A smooth and clear voice, dreamy movements, and looks that could kill made him a threat. Moondae knew that Ahyeon could easily get into the debut group, making his own chances worse, but…

‘I don’t regret it,’ he thought to himself as the lights turned on, revealing that their clothing had been stained in blood. His clear voice rang out as he sang the bridge of the song, closing his eyes before opening them, his gaze piercing through the crowd.

“Can’t you feel me? Your loving hands… Raise me back up again. The beautiful Garden of spring.”

When the song had finished, falling onto the floor of the stage as the moon disappeared behind them, Moondae slowly pulled himself. The audience was resounding with applause and cheers. He could barely process what was happening, but before he knew it, he was walking backstage. Moondae looked at his teammates, who were slightly emotional. The crowd even began to cheer for an encore.

It felt wrong for him to have enjoyed being on that stage when he had no right to do so. He was in a twenty-five year old’s body and a teen mom. His soulmate was in the same industry as him, and here he was, singing a song from a girl group from the same agency as him. To enjoy something like this felt so wrong, especially when he was only doing it for his own survival.

‘But it was fun,’ he admitted to himself as Keun Sejin started to pull them even for a group hug. Even Lee Sejin who was usually quite frigid got pulled into it.

And then he saw the camera pointed at them.

‘…Keun Sejin, you’re really sly, aren’t you,’ he thought to himself. ‘Well, it is important to show comradery on camera, so I can’t fault him for that.’

Their team, October 31, was seated in the monitoring room as they waited for the other team, who would be singing VTIC’s ‘Sangun’, to start. The lights came on, revealing Ryu Cheongwoo’s handsome face. He was standing in the center, raising his head up slightly as his blue hanbok swished behind him, the song starting to play.

“Uh…” Keun Sejin started to say before brightening his expression. “Ooh! Wow, they’re so cool~”

The problem was the fact that the song was too recent, and not only that, but it was by the current top boy group. You could do the song well, but you’d inevitably get compared to the original and not the competing team. At the end of the day, the audience would end up thinking ‘These guys don’t come close to VTIC.’

Needless to say, it was a landslide victory.

Afterwards, Moondae got his phone back and started to pack up all of his things from their rooms, quickly checking his text messages. He ignored the messages in the ‘Octoberz’ group chat and immediately goes to text Chaeyeon. Her name was labeled ‘Chaeyeon ♡’, and Moondae never bothered to change the contact name. The heart was real, after all. The real Moondae put it like that, so he’d keep it that way.

Park Moondae: i’m done with filming.

Park Chaeyeon: yayyy!!!

Park Chaeyeon: are you gonna come and pick me up??? what are we eating?!?!?

Park Moondae: we can go out to eat instead if you want. your classes are almost finished, right?

Park Chaeyeon: YAYYYYYY

Park Chaeyeon: i should be off by the time you come and pick me up!!!

Park Moondae: anything you want in particular?

Park Chaeyeon: galbijjim!!! or!!! gamjatang!!

Moondae smiled to himself as he typed a message out to Chaeyeon.

‘I’ll see you in a bit… Or, no, I should probably give her an ETA,’ he thought to himself as he backspaced and started to type down how long it’d take for him to get to her.

“Oh, Moondae-hyung, you have a girlfriend~?”

Moondae immediately slammed his phone down and looked behind him, seeing Keun Sejin hovering over him a bit. Keun Sejin jumped a little bit at how fast Moondae put his phone down and frantically said, “Hey, no worries, I was just joking! I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

Shit, Sejin better not get any wrong ideas. Moondae shouldn’t be acting the way he just acted if Chaeyeon was only meant to be his niece and not his daughter. Moondae suppressed the urge to click his tongue and calmed his expression.

“…There’s nothing to promise since it isn’t my girlfriend,” Moondae said as he looked at Sejin, who still looked slightly frazzled. “It’d be pretty illegal in multiple ways if she were my girlfriend, considering she’s eight years old and also my niece.”

“Ah, sorry! I really didn’t mean it that way… But you must be pretty close with your niece! The little heart is cute,” he teased. “Maybe you’re a lot more soft-hearted than I thought, MoondaeMoondae~ Is it okay if I call you that, hyung?’

“…It’s fine,” Moondae said. Why the hell was this kid trying to get close to him? Was he an important asset, or something? “Anyway, why are you here? Need something?”

“I just wanted to thank you,” Sejin said as he backed away from Moondae. “Seriously, I mean it. Thank you for all of your hard work, hyung.”

“…You too,” he said. “You were a good leader.”

“Ahah, really? Thank you for the compliment, hyung~! I really was an awesome leader, wasn’t I? …Okay, you can stop glaring at me now.”

He didn’t mean to, but his face ended up looking like that anyway. Moondae didn’t really want to get close to Keun Sejin on the account that he might be a potential drug dealer, but there wasn’t any legitimate reason as to why he had to avoid him. Or, at least a known and present reason. If anything, Moondae would look like an asshole if he tried to actively push him away.

“Anyway, I wanted to know if you wanted to keep in contact?” Keun Sejin asked. “Meet up often and stay in touch, you know?’

‘No,’ is what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t do that.

“…Alright,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

Moondae picked up his phone and got up onto his feet. He then heard the creak of a door and a familiar soft voice ring out. “M-Me too! K-Keep in touc—”

“Keep in touch?” Keun Sejin asked as he saw Ahyeon poke his head in, his phone in his hand. Ahyeon nodded his head and approached the two of them as Sejin spoke. “Should we make a group chat with all three of us? Hm, what should we name the group chat…? ‘Cute Boys’? I’ll even add a cute emoji at the end!”

“U-Um, I’m fine with anything!” Ahyeon said.

Moondae wasn’t, but he just had to accept it. When did he even agree to this? Well, whatever… He’d just have to cut off Keun Sejin at some point in case, but he just had to deal with it for now.

Moondae got into his car and typed out a quick message to Chaeyeon before he started driving. He arrived on time, according to the traffic. He was parked outside of Chaeyeon’s hagwon, waiting for her to come out so they could go and have a bite to eat. He was looking at his phone in the meantime, monitoring the reactions to the concert when he got a text message in the group chat.

Lee Sejin (Keun): moondaemoondae!!

Lee Sejin (Keun): don’t you read the gc?? ㅋㅋ

Lee Sejin (Keun): you didn’t even read the messages… you’re so cold moondae-hyung

Moondae looked down at the messages with a blank expression before replying.

Park Moondae: sorry, i was driving.

Lee Sejin (Keun): ahh don’t apologize!! didn’t mean to bother you while you were driving;;

Lee Sejin (Keun): just check out the gc when you have the chance!!

He took a quick glance at the ‘Octoberz 😈’ group chat and a sour expression fell upon his face.

Lee Sejin (Keun): that’s right, now that i think about it, does moondae wash his face with magic water everyday? why does it seem like he’s getting more and more handsome ㅎ

Lee Sejin (Keun): in the name of comradery, please share the dermatologist with us… @Park Moondae

This motherfucker.

Moondae was about to type ‘I don’t have one,’ but before he could send it, Ahyeon sent the longest message he’d ever seen. It was so long that you had to tap the message in order to read all of its contents. Not only that, but the message was really sincere and kind.

“…”

Park Moondae: thanks guys. i’ll see you at the next filming.

Moondae rested his hand on the steering wheel before turning his head, seeing a blob of pink and black become clearer, revealing Chaeyeon in her long baby pink puffer jacket. She was running towards the car, her backpack jangling as she quickly swung the backseat’s car door open and hopped in. She looked visibly shaken by something, biting her bottom lip. As soon as she closed the door, she yelled, “MOMMY!!”

Moondae flinched, shocked at her loud voice. “Wh-What? Did something happen, Chaeyeon? Are you okay?”

Chaeyeon slung her backpack off and crawled into the midsection of the car, meeting Moondae face-to-face. Her eyes were a little bit red. “Your performance! I didn’t see it, and I’m so mad! I wanted to see you in a pretty outfit with my own eyes!”

Chaeyeon latched her fingers into Moondae’s hoodie and started to shake him. Moondae was extremely confused, managing to steady himself as Chaeyeon decided to beat his chest with her little fists. “Mommy, I want you to wear pretty clothing all the time! I know you want to! I know you like pretty clothing! That’s why you buy me cute and pretty clothing, because you want to wear it! I want you to wear pretty clothing too, so stop wearing your stupid old hoodies!”

Chaeyeon then began to tug at his clothing upwards intent on dragging it up and off his body. Moondae quickly held the hem of his hoodie down, frazzled as he held Chaeyeon’s shoulders and pushed her back.

“Chaeyeon…! Chaeyeon, hey, what’s gotten into you? This is so sudden— are you that mad about not seeing the performance?”

No, that wasn’t it. He knew that wasn’t it.

Chaeyeon’s face scrunched up as she kept grabbing his hoodie.

“…I’m… I’m tired of lying!” she yelled. “I’m tired of it! I don’t want to do it anymore! I hate having to lie about us! About how you’re not my mommy, about how I don’t have parents, about who you are…! I’m tired of it!”

Moondae let her grab at him, taking his hands off of her shoulders, instead placing them lightly against her hands. “…Did someone say something to you at school?”

Chaeyeon went silent for a few seconds before her body started shaking, tears rolling out as she held back her gasps of sorrow.

“…They kept calling me an orphan…!” she forced out, her voice wet. “They kept saying that I don’t have a mom or a dad, but I do! I do have a mommy and a daddy…! Why? Why do we have to keep it hidden? I’m tired of it—! Can we just be normal? Can we just be a normal family? Please? Why can’t we?!”

Moondae’s mouth went dry as he let Chaeyeon keep tugging at him. Yeah, why? Why did they have to keep hiding? It seemed like the only reason they were hiding was because of Jaehyun, but even if they came out with it… nothing good would come of it. Moondae wouldn’t be able to debut as an idol, and he’d end up dying. Cheongryeo would probably have a major downfall after it came out he was a deadbeat dad, and Chaeyeon wouldn’t be happy. She wouldn’t have a mom at all if they were public with it. So, Moondae had to hide himself. Moondae knew what Chaeyeon meant by ‘pretty’ clothing. It didn’t mean he had to dress in a more feminine way or anything— it was more of a question of why he felt the need to cover up his body— to hide his natural curves and small waist that most male omegas had. He had to wear baggy clothing, take on a harsher attitude, and pretend he hadn’t given birth to a child. Maybe it wasn’t the realization of Jaehyun not coming back that killed him; maybe it was the pressure.

“I’m sorry that we can’t be a normal family,” he said as he let Chaeyeon cry. “We may never be a normal family. That… That’s my fault. Nothing is your fault, Chaeyeon. I’m sorry that we have to hide like this, and as much as I want to call you my daughter out in public, I can’t.”

Moondae ran his fingers across her knuckles, letting her slowly release her grip on him. “We have to hide so we can stay safe. Mommy can’t wear ‘pretty’ clothing because I’m not supposed—”

“Not supposed to be an omega,” she muttered as she sniffled. “But… But you have to hide something that isn’t wrong. There’s nothing wrong with being an omega…! I can understand the others, but— But why?”

“…I don’t really know,” he admitted.

He didn’t know why Moondae decided to sweep being an omega under the rug and try to present as a beta. Having a niece and uncle dynamic was understandable; being a single teenage mom was hard. But why pretend to be a beta when they already had a cover story? It might be because Gunwoo just hadn’t really experienced the difficulties of being an omega, but he still couldn’t wrap his head around it.

Omegas were famously mistreated in the past; that was a well-known fact. Even today, they’re often looked down upon and sexualized in both the workplace and the entertainment industry. Obviously this was an ignorant minority, and with laws in place that made it so they could hide their secondary gender in a social setting, omegas could live a fairly peaceful life. There were, however, negatives to being openly omega. Omegas were already seen as inferior to those with more extreme views, and among that, male omegas were considered to be even worse since they ‘couldn’t even do their jobs right,’ which is to have kids. It’s harder for male omegas to get pregnant; harder than most beta females. They tend to only get pregnant during their heats or when their partner is in a rut, and even then, the chances aren’t that big.

They’re viewed as baby-making machines, and even though it’s an old sentiment, it’s culturally ingrained. They’re also frequently rejected from jobs if they’re an omega due to the fact that they would be considered a nuisance due to their heats, even when alphas weren’t that different.

“…I probably did it because it was hard to be an omega,” he said. If he looked at it logically, it seemed to be the reason, but there also seemed to be something else that he didn’t know. “Sometimes jobs won’t hire you, and you’re looked down on by people. I also had you, so I needed to care for you without having any limitations.”

“…So it’s my fault?” Chaeyeon asked hesitantly.

“No—” he quickly replied, holding her hands firm in his before quickly losing his grip. Chaeyeon started to whine, her body draping over the center console before slowly sliding down to the car floor. She was balled up before stretching her limbs across it, her hair sticking to her face. “Chaeyeon— Chaeyeon, stop sliding down. It isn’t your fault. Having you wasn’t a mistake, and me being an omega isn’t either. It’s just… our world works in a way that might be a little unfair to us.”

She whined as she pressed her head against the car’s floor. God, it was probably dirty down there. She then said, “If you weren’t an omega you wouldn’t have had me, and I want people to know that you’re my mommy…”

“Chaeyeon, we can’t.”

“I know and I—!” Chaeyeon started to kick her feet around. “I hate it! I hate him!”

Moondae watched as Chaeyeon started to throw her first ever tantrum. Was it even considered a tantrum if it was a perfectly reasonable meltdown? Moondae started to lean over to the backseat hesitantly, not sure how he should approach the situation. Chaeyeon was an incredibly well-mannered child, so he had zero idea something like this would happen. Should he just let her get all of her anger out…?

“I hate him!” she yelled as she flopped around on the floor. “I hate him so much!”

“Who do you hate, Chaeyeon?” Moondae questioned hesitantly as he started to try and pull her up, but she was intent on crying on the dirty car floor with all of the crumbs. “Me?

Her cheeks had tears streaking down them as she yelled, “No, not you! DADDY! I hate Daddy! Why can’t he just come back?! He’s so stupid, I hate him! If he just came back everything would be fine! We could all be a family, and then we could spend every day together, and— Grahhh!”

Chaeyeon screamed her heart out, slamming her fists on the ground, pulling her puffer jacket up to her mouth to try and dampen the sound, but her shriek of rage still rang true. Moondae just watched her meltdown in shock, but after she let out her last rage-filled scream and punched the back of the passenger seat, she took in a deep breath and laid slack on the ground, as if all of her strings had been cut. Face on the ground, she questioned with a muffled voice, “…Will he ever come back, or is it just you and me?”

Moondae didn’t know how to answer. Chaeyeon was saying everything he had been thinking and feeling; he just didn’t let it out. To him, there was no point in screaming, crying, and letting out his frustration, because he had bigger things to focus on, but watching her cry and get mad on his behalf was almost cathartic, as bad as it sounded.

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “But I think it might just be you and me now. It might be sad to hear this, but… I don’t think he’s coming back. I know I told you in the past that he’d come back, but now I don’t know. I really don’t.”

Chaeyeon processed the answer that Moondae gave her before asking, “When can we be family? When can I be your daughter…?”

If he took the debut group’s contract period into consideration after completing his status abnormality, then…

“…No promises, but maybe five and a half years,” he said softly. “I can’t make promises after what happened with your dad. Even if I’m sure about it, I don’t think it’s right for me to try and give you hope unless it’s a hundred percent going to happen.”

“…Mommy, in five years, you’re going to be old… I’m going to be thirteen in five years… and that’s old…”

He’d be thirty, dammit. If thirteen was old, then he didn’t want to know how old she thought a thirty year old was in comparison. A senior citizen?

“Five years is a long time,” he said. “But after that, it’ll just be me and you as mother and daughter, okay? Maybe you can write down a list of things you want to do as a family, or any wishes you have.”

Chaeyeon raised her head, eyes puffy. She had crumbs stuck to her face and other odd particles. “…I want a dog. And… And I want to go to an amusement park while calling you Mommy. I want to brag to people how you’re my mommy, and how you were so strong… A-And how you took really good care of me…”

“That sounds nice,” he responded. “I’d like that, too.”

“…I want people to know how you were so strong for having and taking care of me when you were young,” she said, tearing up again. “I want people to know how amazing my mom is.”

Moondae reached his hand out to Chaeyeon, and she latched her small hands into his, pulling herself up. Moondae then said to her, “I wish everyone knew how amazing my daughter is as well.”

Chaeyeon sniffled as she clumsily sat herself on her booster seat, using her hand to get the crumbs off of her face. They both sat in silence as Chaeyeon buckled herself, and Moondae took out a napkin, wiping her face with it.

“Blow,” he said as he held it to her nose. She blew into it, snot coating the napkin as he folded it and made her blow into it again. “…Are you okay now?”

“…I’m still angry,” she grumbled with a pout.

“Then you can eat angrily,” he said as he put the snot-filled napkin to the side. He’d have to remember to clean the car later. “You can imagine your daddy as the meat as you rip into him.”

“Can I really?”

“Chew as if you want him dead,” Moondae affirmed as he put the car out of park and started to drive out.

“…Shouldn’t you be the one who wants to kill him the most…?” she wondered.

Oh, she had no idea.

‘…I should go see the doctor.’

Chapter Text

As a beta, Gunwoo was never in the situation or environment that would make him spend time with kids. He was too busy caring for himself and working hard. At most, he’d pass by them on the streets or see a family eating in a restaurant. Now that he was in the body of an omega, he had been spending a lot of time around one child in particular. He wouldn’t say he had ‘maternal instinct’— in his opinion, such a thing didn’t exist. It was unreasonable to believe that women and omegas were naturally good at taking care of children and that they’re an ‘oddity’ if they weren’t. There were plenty of women and omegas out in the world that had zero desire to actually have kids. They may think about it in a fleeting moment or have the thought violently invade their brain during a heat, but it didn’t mean they actually wanted one.

Moondae didn’t have paternal or maternal instincts. They didn’t exist. He wouldn’t say he was good with kids, but maybe that was only because he hadn’t spent time with them. As he watched Chaeyeon eat with vigor, her eyebrows furrowed as she chewed on pieces of meat, he thought that being a parent was something you had to learn on the job. You had to watch, observe, and adjust your methods.

Despite how much he cared for Chaeyeon, he didn’t know if he cared for her purely out of responsibility or something else. She was a good kid. She was smart, sensitive, and kind. She was also, as he had to experience, still a kid. He saw the way she threw a fit in the back of the car. He… didn’t know how to handle kids in a delicate manner. So far he had been scraping by, deciding to talk to her frankly without treating her as if she’s an idiot. It was working so far— when Gunwoo was a kid, he also wanted to be treated fairly. Sure, he was a kid, but he could still be understanding. If someone put in the effort to explain something to him, he would always try and understand. The problem was that nobody would do that in the first place. ‘You’re just a kid, you’ll learn when you’re older,’ was the phrase he hated the most. He didn’t want to treat Chaeyeon like that. It seemed the original Moondae also had that method in place, where he would explain things frankly and simply, and if there were things that weren’t age appropriate for her, he would simply say that. It was also a blessing that Chaeyeon wasn’t the type of kid to ask ‘Why?’ over and over again. She was endearing. She was sweet.

‘…And I know nothing about her,’ he thought to himself as he took a sip of his beer. As he thought about it, he really didn’t know a lot about her. He knew what her personality was like, some of her interests and hobbies, and a few of her likes, but he didn’t know much outside of that. In reality, Chaeyeon was still a stranger. A stranger that he felt a loving attachment to; a stranger that he needed to protect.

It was an odd feeling. His heart ached. Or was it ‘Park Moondae’s’ heart? What if these feelings were just Moondae’s, copy and pasted onto him? How much control did Moondae even have over his own mind and body after switching?

He didn’t know. He doubted he needed to know when it came to Chaeyeon, at least. Even if he didn’t feel this love and compassion that came from seemingly nowhere, he would never leave her alone. She was just a child. He couldn’t abandon her like that. Even though he didn’t want to abandon her, it wouldn’t be a lie to say he didn’t know how to treat her. Being frank, honest, and in-tune with someone’s emotions wasn’t something he was familiar with, but he tried to be understanding.

“Is it good?” he questioned softly as Chaeyeon put some rice in her mouth.

“It tastes better ‘cause I’m imagining that I’m chewing Daddy into little pieces,” she said, her words coming out funny because of how stuffed her mouth was. “How about you?”

“Oh, I’m chugging this down while imagining that I’m hitting his head with a glass bottle,” Moondae said as he lifted his beer glass up before gulping it down. As he set it down, he was hit with the realization that maybe he shouldn’t say that to a kid. “…You shouldn’t actually hit anybody over the head with a glass bottle, though.”

“It’s fun to imagine, though~” Chaeyeon snickered as she put another piece of meat in her mouth.

“Make sure to eat the vegetables, too,” Moondae said as he picked up his chopsticks and started to put potato and carrots onto her plate. Chaeyeon looked at him slightly upset before muttering an, ‘okay…’ as she moved around the vegetables on her plate. Moondae couldn’t help the small smile on his face as she put a carrot in her mouth, her expression brightening a bit as she went for another.

There was something satisfying about watching her eat well. If she ate a lot, she’d definitely grow pretty tall. The original Moondae most likely didn’t eat a lot, if his weight and height were any indicators. He was 5’9”, which was still taller than most people, but his weight was a bigger concern. It seemed he was long due for a doctor’s appointment.

“Oppa,” Chaeyeon said. “Hurry up and eat. If you don’t eat, you’ll die.”

That seemed to be her favorite phrase.

“…Chaeyeon,” he started to say. “You know how Mo— Oppa has some memory issues?”

“Mhm?”

“Well, I have to relearn a lot of stuff,” Moondae said gently. “Like what you like to do, what your favorite foods are, your friends at school… Things like that. I should be more involved in your life.”

Chaeyeon moved her food around and said after a while, “…You don’t have to.”

Moondae went silent at her response before quietly questioning, “…Why?”

“Mmmm…” she looked around nervously before whispering. “You knew a lot about me, but… But you didn’t really talk to a lot of people. You were kind of lonely back then. Or maybe you were just scared of people. I’m not sure.”

“You thought I was scared of people?” he questioned. He might be able to uncover something with this. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”

“When I was little,” she started to say, “people would stare at you. You couldn’t act like a… Well, you know.”

A beta, he assumed.

Chaeyeon continued. “People would stare at you a lot and call you names. It was hard for you to find jobs since you had me. We had to move places, and you had a really hard time. This was when you told me to not call you that in public.”

“This was when you were around three years old, right?” he questioned.

“Mhm,” she said. “I used to call you that all the time accidentally before then, but then you told me to stop calling you that unless it was just the two of us. So, I just started to stick to Oppa. You didn’t have friends, and you seemed really stressed all the time, but when you started to act like you do now, it became easier! You got a bunch of jobs and we moved into a new place. You could get a car, take me out to fun places, enroll me in daycare, and a bunch of other stuff! It was nice, since we had a lot of money from your jobs, but people were kind of mean.”

Moondae doubted that it was the money from his jobs. Most likely, it was the money from Jaehyun’s deposits. Moondae seemed to take full advantage of it right away, and once he was settled in, he left it to the side for emergencies.

“‘Mean’? What would they say?”

“I can’t say them,” she said. “They’re naughty words.”

“…Are you aware that they’re naughty words, and that they shouldn’t be said to people?” Moondae questioned. She nodded. “As long as you know that they’re bad and that they can hurt people, it’s okay. I’m asking you to say it— I give you permission just this time.”

“…Okay,” she said, still embarrassed. “They’d call you a whore. And a slut. A-And a—”

“Okay, wait, hold on—” Moondae stopped her, resting his head in his hands. He might’ve been the one to ask her to say it, but the tonal whiplash of such a cute voice and face saying those words was immense. He removed his hands from his face and took a deep breath. “I’m okay, you can continue.”

“…They’d call you bitch in heat, and stuff. We were eating at a restaurant and someone randomly started to be mean and asked, ‘How could you get pregnant and have a kid at such a young age’… The parents from that daycare were really mean, too. They would call you a whore, since there’s no way you’d be able to get that much money, even though I know you worked hard…”

“And then we moved again?”

“Yeah, we moved again. Away from all of those people,” she said with a nod. “We never really stayed at one place for too long, since you didn’t really want people to remember. It worked, since nobody from back then remembers you and me. That’s how we got to our current apartment! We haven’t moved since then. Everything has been pretty nice from that point on.”

“…But not nice enough for me to be more involved with your life?”

“…”

“…Chaeyeon,” he said softly, looking her in the eyes. “I can take care of myself. I’m an adult. I should be responsible for you.”

“But…” she started to say as he averted her gaze. “But… But it’s scary. It’s scary for you. People have always been so mean to you, and I don’t want to see you cry again.”

“Chaeyeon, I won’t cry because of it—”

“But you will. You’re a liar, you know. You like lying a lot. You always say it’s fine when it isn’t,” she said rather matter-of-factly before her voice softened. “…People are always mean to you. It’s for no reason, too. They’d pick on you for the smallest things, and you’d always act like it was fine, but you’d cry by yourself in the bathroom.”

Chaeyeon hung her head low. “…People are always mean to us. I don’t want you to see when people are mean to me and you. It makes you sad, and I don’t like seeing you sad.”

The original Moondae was probably weak-hearted to a certain degree from the pressure of being a teenage omega parent. Hearing too many bad things in your life could affect you, and Chaeyeon had definitely heard a lot.

“…Chaeyeon,” Moondae said. “Chaeyeon, look at me.”

Chaeyeon hesitantly met Moondae’s gaze with hers.

“Chaeyeon,” he started to say. “I’m sorry for lying. I will get hurt, and I will cry.”

“But—”

“Let me finish,” he said, sticking a hand out to stop her before letting out a sigh. “People get hurt and cry all the time. It’s a part of life and we can’t avoid it. Of course, it isn’t always fair, and a lot of people don’t recover from the pain… But I’m willing to be in pain because I care about you. If I end up getting really hurt and really sad, I know I can stand back up, since I have you by my side. I hide my pain so I don’t worry you. You do the same, don’t you? Because you care.”

“…I do,” she admitted. “I’m a liar too, I guess, since I lie so I can keep you safe.”

“Lying isn’t always bad.”

Chaeyeon looked at him really shocked. Yikes, okay, maybe that wasn’t the right message to send, but it was true.

“…People lie for good reasons, but it isn’t always good to lie,” he said. “You and I lie so we can stay safe. We lie so we don’t have to hurt more than we have to, but if we’re going to get hurt no matter what, I want to make sure I’m getting hurt for a good reason. But Chaeyeon, I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep me safe. Maybe you felt like you needed to in the last since I wasn’t very well, but that isn’t the case anymore.

“I want to know more about you, Chaeyeon. I want to know what you like to do, what you want to be, and the people you spend your time with. Can you let me do that? Can you let me take care of you, and can you let yourself be a kid?”

Chaeyeon swung her feet underneath the table, fiddling with her hair before saying, “…Fine.”

Moondae put his hand on top of Chaeyeon’s. Small, soft, and kind. “I’ll protect you as much as you protected me. You can protect me when I really need it, okay?”

Chaeyeon slowly started to smile. “Promise?”

“Of course.”

For as long as he could, until she could walk with confidence on her own two feet, he’d protect her.

“I can’t put you on birth control.”

Dammit.

He was currently at an OB/GYN, getting his body and reproductive system tested. It had been two days since his conversation with Chaeyeon at the restaurant, and a lot of things have changed since then, yet at the same time, nothing changed. Chaeyeon hadn’t really said much to him after that, and told him to, ‘Wait like a good Mommy,’ which made him incredibly confused. What was he, a dog?

He didn’t want to pry too much, and she kept insisting that she was sorting something out for him, so all he could do was wait and practice for Idol Inc. During this time, he also hid all of the information regarding Chaeyeon and himself away in the apartment, like their family records, the camera and SD card he had; anything that could blow their cover. He’d be screwed if any of it came to light; his life literally depended on it. He hid it so well that he doubted anyone would be able to find it unless they were told about it. He hid everything in the crevice of the linen closet, inside of a broken part of the wall. Unless you intentionally put your hand inside and dug around in there, you wouldn’t know there was something other than blankets.

The one thing he needed to hide was, well, himself. He was an omega with the mission of completely destroying his heat cycle. He made sure to find an OB/GYN office that had good reviews and didn’t have a history of blabbing about their patients’ medical histories to other parties. He wanted to do a full rundown of his body, even though parts of the examination were definitely awkward, like having to check the health of his uterus and womb. Moondae’s face was on fire the entire time as a sense of shame permeated him, feeling them mess with asshole. He knew it was supposed to be for medical reasons and that he signed himself up for this, but it didn’t help his embarrassment. The doctors having zero reactions made him feel a bit better; it was clockwork to them.

The doctor he was seeing crossed her legs while looking at the results of all of his examinations and charts. She flipped through page after page on the clipboard, marking down things with a black pen. “Having your heats be this irregular is something I’ve never seen before. I can’t put you on any kind of birth control since it might affect your already irregular heat cycle in a negative way. Even heat suppressants are off the table until your cycle becomes regular.”

She started to write something down on his chart, a pensive look on her face. She raised her head up and pushed her glasses up onto her nose. “You’ll just have to stick to condoms or things that don’t require you to medicate yourself. Although, because of how irregular your heat cycles are, it’ll be very hard for you to get pregnant until they get back on track. For male omegas, fertility is really dependent on whether or not your heats are on track. Regardless, your reproductive system is very healthy. Your ovaries are in good health, your egg count is great, and as long as we get your heat cycle to become regular again, you’ll be as healthy as can be.”

Moondae felt slightly crushed by that sad feeling in the back of his head when he was told that he’d have a hard time getting pregnant before stomping it into submission. He had no time to entertain the omega side of him when he was currently trying to get rid of it.

“…To be honest, I was asking about birth control because I was concerned about my heat cycle,” he admitted. “I wanted to know if there’s a way to stop them entirely, considering they’re already irregular. I’m not really looking to have any more kids, and I don’t have any sexual partners. If I can’t use heat suppressants, I might be put into danger.”

“A way to stop your heat cycle without completely destroying your reproductive system?” she questioned. “There isn’t one. Omegas stop experiencing heats when they’re around their fifties, or if they already have a medical condition that makes them unable to experience heats. Trying to intentionally stop your heat cycle could have devastating consequences for your health. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, nobody ever signs off on it.”

So essentially, he was screwed. As long as he was living, he’d have to keep having heats and think of his damn face.

“Omegas go through heat for a reason,” the doctor explained. “It’s perceived as an inconvenience, but we go through heats to stay healthy. If our reproductive system is in trouble, it can affect the entire body. More often than not, people have irregular heats because they’re unhealthy in some sort of way, physically or mentally. For someone to go seven years without a heat and to experience one after that is almost a miracle— if you’d gone past the eight year mark, you’d probably never experience a heat again, and subsequently have long-term health issues following that. As long as you take pheromone blockers and suppressants only when you need to and be more conscious of your pre-heat symptoms, you shouldn’t have any troubles. Induced heats are rarer than you think; most people don’t go into heat randomly without their body giving them a notice.”

That explained the fever he had the day before his heat. But why the hell did Moondae go into heat after seven years in the first place? Every possible bad thing that could’ve happened to his body happened, and yet he still went through a heat. His suicide attempt, his abandonment, having to work overtime, switching bodies— wouldn’t he have been considered even more unhealthy than usual by the time his heat occurred?

“…I have a question,” he asked. “Hypothetically, if I had a soulmate, how would that affect my heat cycles…?”

The doctor’s eyebrows raised in suspicion, but she didn’t question him. “Well, there isn’t a lot of research on soulmates because of how rare they are. Around 15% of the world’s population is made up of omegas and alphas, and within that, less than .05% percent have reported that they have soulmates.”

She uncrossed her legs and looked at him rather seriously. “Soulmates are still an enigma. We don’t know a lot about them. Somebody can go their entire life without meeting their soulmate, and so they never really know. Once you meet them though, you’re inseparable. You can become very anxious when you aren’t in their presence for long periods of time. If you haven’t met your soulmate in a long time, it could definitely delay your heat cycle, since your body knows who it wants to spend it with. You’d most likely have a heat pretty soon after meeting them again.”

Moondae had never met Shin Jaehyun, ever. His body did, but Moondae as he was now sure as hell didn’t.

…Wait.

“If you were to never meet your soulmate, would you have regular heat cycles?” he questioned.

The doctor looked at him even more confusedly, but she entertained the question. “…Most likely. As long as you’re healthy and don’t have any of the conditions I mentioned beforehand, you should have regular heats.”

That explained everything. Fuck, no wonder he had a heat— his body perceived it as if he had never met Shin Jahyun, since he can’t remember it. Therefore, his heat cycles were back to being a regular occurrence.

‘…That means three months from now, I’m going to have to go through all of that again,’ he thought to himself. ‘Fuck.’

“Thank you for your time, doctor,” he said, bowing to her. He didn’t let an ounce of frustration show up on his face.

“Make sure to take care of your reproductive health— people who give birth as teens should pay special attention,” she said as she stood up from her stool and grabbed something out from a drawer before handing it to him. It was a colorful pamphlet of some kind, with a list of phone numbers, and she handed it to him along with the results of his examination. “…A lot of things have changed from nine years ago, when you were pregnant. Abortion is decriminalized now, and there are a lot more resources out there for you. You were a high-risk pregnancy, and giving birth must’ve been hard. Consider looking into your options. Also, please make sure to visit the clinic frequently. I’m shocked this is your first time visiting an OB/GYN in seven years, considering your irregular heats.”

Moondae hesitantly took the papers from her and stood up from the examination table, once again bowing to her. “…Thank you very much. I’ll make sure to get frequent checks up.”

“Every three months,” she said. “I suggest getting a lot of rest and keeping track of your heats. If they become consistent, that’s good for you.”

No, it wasn’t. He wanted them gone.

Moondae nodded as he was led out of the clinic, taking a deep breath of the chilly air before putting a face mask and hat on to cover his identity. It would suck to be recognized coming outside of an OB/GYN when he was supposed to be a beta.

‘I need to pick Chaeyeon up from school,’ he thought to himself as he walked into the parking lot and got into his car, putting the results of his OB/GYN visit in the passenger seat. He laid back in the driver's seat and suppressed a groan, putting a hand over his eyes. Things were getting more and more complicated as the days went by. ‘…Whatever. I just have to get over it.’

When he got to Chaeyeon’s school, he quickly shoved the papers in the glove box and waited for her to come out. He saw her familiar pink coat as she waddled towards him, as she was holding hands with… someone. Moondae sat up in his seat and saw that she was holding hands with a girl, Minji, he remembered. It seemed like Minji was the one who was dragging Chaeyeon to the car and not the other way around, her little feet struggling to catch up with her friend. Minji was wearing a puffer jacket similar to Chaeyeon’s, although it was a cream color. They both got close to the car and Chaeyeon gestured with her hands to roll down the window, which he did.

“Hello, Chaeyeon’s oppa!” Minji said, smiling at him. She had chestnut brown hair and eyes, with sweet freckles dotting her face. “Chaeyeon said I should greet you properly, since she said you’re feeling a lot better now! I’m Han Minji, and I’m in class 2-4 with Chaeyeon! My hobbies are watching idols and making Chaeyeon laugh!”

Moondae looked at Chaeyeon in confusion and she awkwardly laughed, a slight blush on her face. “Ahaha, um, this is Minji, my friend! You said you wanted to meet her, so, um… Here she is.”

Park Chaeyeon, why were you so shy right now?

“It’s nice to meet you, Minji,” he said with a polite smile, leaning out of the car window to look at her more clearly. “I’m Park Moondae, Chaeyeon’s oppa.”

“I knew that!”

Okay.

“Oh, right!” Minji exclaimed, turning her head toward Chaeyeon. “My mommy said she wanted to meet your oppa now that he’s feeling better! She’s in her car right now. You wanna go and talk to her?”

Why was Minji asking Chaeyeon as if Moondae was the child…? Wait, he didn’t expect this. Still, he was the one who insisted on being a part of Chaeyeon’s life, so he couldn’t refuse after saying something like that. Chaeyeon looked at him nervously, looking between the two of them as she kept a grip on Minji’s hand.

“…I’ll go.”

Chaeyeon brightened up at his response and started to jump up and down. “Come on, come on! Hurry!”

“Maybe we can go on a playdate with each other!” Minji cheered before whispering to Chaeyeon in a not so quiet voice, “I’m trying to set up your oppa and my mommy on a date…!”

“Minji…!” Chaeyeon exclaimed in shock as Moondae rolled up the window and exited the car, locking it with his car key.

“It’s okay, I’m just kidding!” Minji said as she stuck out her tongue. “My mommy doesn’t want to date anyone. She thinks people are stinky.”

‘Your mom is right,’ Moondae thought as he followed the two kids to Minji’s mom’s car, which wasn’t too far away. The window was already rolled down and Minji shouted, “Mommy! Mommy, I brought Chaeyeon and her oppa!”

Minji’s mom poked her head out and Moondae was taken aback, but just a bit. She had a silver nose and lip piercing, and her ears had even more than that. She had shaggy black hair in a wolf cut, and her eyes were also bordering on pure black. She rested her arm on the car window, and her upper arm tattoo was very visible. It was of numerous flowers and a monarch butterfly, with Minji’s name inscribed on it.

“Oh, hey there, kiddo,” she said rather casually as she stretched out her head, messing up Minji’s hair. Minji giggled as she did so. She then turned her gaze over to Moondae, a slight grin on her face. “And you must be Chaeyeon’s oppa that I’ve heard so much about. I’m Han Sooji, Minji’s mom. We’ve met before and it was pretty brief, so I’m introducing myself again. Oh— congratulations on the audition program, by the way. I’m rooting for you.”

“Yes,” he said, bowing slightly. “I’m Park Moondae. Thank you for taking care of Chaeyeon.”

“Hey, no biggie, she’s great fun,” she said, waving him off. “And you don’t have to address me so politely— I’m pretty sure you’re older than me.”

…Moondae’s older than her?

“If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?”

“I’m twenty-two,” she said.

Oh. Minji was eight years old, so…

“I was wondering if we could talk with each other? Y’know, since our kids get along well, I kinda wanted to know more about you. Maybe we can go to a kid’s café, or something,” she suggested. “Only if you’re free, of course. I wouldn’t want to impede or anything.”

Deny it. He needed to deny it, now.

“Oh, well I actually—”

“Oppa doesn’t have anything on his schedule today!” Chaeyeon said quickly, almost stumbling on her words.

Dammit, Chaeyeon.

“Oh, really? I don’t have anything on my schedule either, so why don’t we have some fun together? I know a good kid’s café around here— me and Minji go there pretty frequently,” she said while winking at Minji. Minji giggled and grabbed at her hand. Sooji then lovingly rubbed her fingers across her knuckles with a loving look on her face.

…Oh. That was what Moondae did with Chaeyeon.

“The location is—” Sooji then rattled it off. It wasn’t that far from where they were, maybe a fifteen minute drive. “I’ll meet you there, okay? We can use our little minions to help with correspondence if we need to, since Minji has Chaeyeon’s number.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Minji saluted before opening the back door of the car. “Told you we were gonna go out somewhere fun! I’m always right~”

“Fifty percent of the time,” Chaeyeon mumbled as Minji blew raspberries at her in response before closing the car door with a victorious slam.

“I’ll see you two there! Chaeyeon, keep an eye out for Minji’s texts!” Sooji yelled as she put her car in drive and started to drive out. Chaeyeon nodded her head as Moondae watched her drive out.

“Chaeyeon,” he said as he started to turn back and walk toward the car. Chaeyeon followed behind him clumsily, her hands holding onto the straps of her backpack.

“…Y-Yeah?” she asked nervously.

“I understand why you kept saying, ‘Keep waiting,’ now,” he said.

“U-Um…”

“I’m not sure how to feel about it,” he said truthfully as he held his hand out for Chaeyeon to grab. When she didn’t grab onto it right away, Moondae beckoned her with his fingers. Chaeyeon hesitantly locked her fingers with his while they kept walking to the car. His thumb trailed across her knuckles, her hand warm in his. “I suspect you did everything and said everything for a reason. I don’t know what that reason is, though, so I’d like for you to tell me.”

“…Are you mad at me?” she asked quietly.

“No, I’m not mad,” he said. “Just confused. I trust you, though. You didn’t say anything bad, right?”

Chaeyeon shook her head as they got to the car. Moondae opened the back seat for her and gave her a small but reassuring smile.

“Then it’s fine.”

Chaeyeon let go of his hand and climbed into the back and onto her car seat. She still looked a little bit nervous as Moondae buckled her seatbelt. He looked into her eyes and said, “You must’ve had a reason, so I trust you.”

Chaeyeon’s eyes started to water.

Moondae was immediately taken aback as he frantically said, “Hey, hey, wait, why are you crying? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

She sniffled and covered her eyes with her hands. “I-It feels like I did something wrong though…! It feels wrong…!”

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he affirmed. “It’s okay to tell me.”

Chaeyeon wiped at her eyes, her breath hitching as she tried to gain enough strength to tell him.

“I-I wanted you to meet Minji and Minji’s mom because I thought you wouldn’t feel alone,” she said through tears. “I-If you talked to Minji’s mom, you’d feel a lot better. A-And Minji’s mom has always wanted to talk to you too, since you’re similar to her, b-but I always had to tell Minji and her mom that you weren’t feeling well in the heart, a-and that you were hurting a lot, and that seeing people was hard for you. I-I’m sorry.”

“No, no apologies. Stop apologizing,” he said, as he moved her hands away from her face and wiped at her tears with his own hands. “Didn’t you say that to me? You said you hate it when people apologize for no reason.”

“B-But I do have a reason, and I feel bad,” she said.

“Okay, okay,” he said, deciding to concede. “You can apologize if you feel bad, but know that there’s nothing that you really need to apologize for. You said all of that because you were looking out for me, and I’m not mad about it. Thank you for looking out for me, Chaeyeon, but you don’t need to do that anymore.”

“I-I’m always worried about you,” she cried. “Stupid people say stupid stuff all the time to you, and you do stupid things because of it…! I-In the last three months, you were really scary. It made me scared. You weren’t acting normal, so I got scared, because I knew you were planning on something stupid. And I know you did something stupid!”

Fuck. This was a bigger issue than he thought it was.

“I know, I’m sorry,” he said as he hugged her. “I won’t act like that anymore. I won’t do it again, okay?”

I’m not going to kill myself, was the hidden message shared between them. Of course Chaeyeon knew what those last three months meant, but she dodged around the subject. It was no wonder why she didn’t question why he had suddenly lost his memory. It was because she knew, deep down she knew what he was planning and what he wanted to do, but she ignored it because surely he wouldn’t. Chaeyeon probably realized what had actually happened not that long ago, and she had been desperately trying to hide her realization behind smiles and energetic actions.

He didn’t notice it until now. He didn’t notice how much she was hurting.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. He was apologizing for something he didn’t even do, but he needed to apologize. His heart felt like it was racing. “I won’t do it again. I’ll make it up to you.”

“No! You don’t need to make it up, just don’t leave me,” she sobbed, her eyes red and filled with tears. She could barely breathe, her throat wet and her nose dripping. “Don’t do it again! Promise! Promise to not act scary again!”

“I promise. I promise I won’t,” he said frantically as he clutched her in his arms, his own breathing starting to become erratic. “I promise.”

Chaeyeon’s fingers wrung the back of his shirt, her body shaking as she screamed at the top of her lungs, “Don’t do it again, or I’ll hate you forever!”

“I won’t,” he immediately responded as he rubbed her back. That sinking feeling in his chest kept dropping and dropping without an end in sight. It was sinking so deep that he started to sweat from it. Why did this ever happen? This was horrible. Why did he ever do it? Moondae, why?

…Could a relationship like this ever be recovered?

Chapter Text

Moondae didn’t know how long he spent there with Chaeyeon, his own arms shaking as she cried into them. She buried her face in the crook of his neck to try and contain her sobs, and he instinctively covered her in his pheromones to soothe her. After a few minutes, her breath levelled out with a few small hiccups. She sniffled, keeping her death grip on Moondae’s black shirt. At least the tear stains wouldn’t show.

“…You’re gonna have to apologize to me your whole life,” she cried, taking in a shaky breath as soft and airy vanilla entered her senses, making her soften her punishing grip. “And Daddy is gonna have to beg for forgiveness for making you hurt so much. It isn’t fair for you. It isn’t fair.”

“It isn’t,” Moondae agreed. “It isn’t fair, but I’m still here. Even if it’s unfair… I’ll be here with you.”

Chaeyeon pulled herself away, her arms still shaking. “You won’t do it? You won’t hurt yourself?”

“I won’t,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking back then. I was hurting a lot. I said that there are people who don’t recover from being hurt… and I was one of those people. I thought I couldn’t recover, but I did. Everybody can recover, they just need time and patience, and people to trust. I just didn’t realize I had that.”

He wanted to make excuses for Moondae to Chaeyeon. ‘He was hurting a lot, he was very sorry to leave you. I don’t think he expected this would be the outcome.’ Yet, for some reason, he started to resent him. How could he not expect this outcome?

“…That’s why you should go make a friend,” Chaeyeon murmured as she dried her tears on Moondae’s shirt, pinching the fabric and bringing it to her face. “I can’t… I can’t protect you all by myself. I’m not… I’m not strong enough. So, I need people who are strong enough to help protect you from other people and yourself.”

He had to be protected from himself.

Moondae took in a deep breath as he stopped his output of pheromones and cupped Chaeyeon’s face in his hands. She felt so small and so tiny, but she still did her best to protect him. To protect Moondae.

‘I’m not actually your mom. Your mom is gone. He died back then, and I took his place. I’m sorry for deceiving you.’ He couldn’t say that. He thought about saying it before, but now there wasn’t a world where he could say that to her, unless he wanted to watch his already fragile child crumble until there’s nothing left.

“Let’s see if I can make a friend, then. We’ll take our time when we’re driving to the café, okay? A scenic route, so we can calm down,” he told her as he brushed her hair away from her eyes. She sniffled and nodded her head as Moondae took his hands off of her and entered the driver’s side. As soon as all the doors and windows were closed, he filled the small space with his scent as he started to drive out. Moondae thought it’d be hard for him to control his scent since he was a beta, but it felt as natural as breathing to him now. It confused him… but it probably had something to do with the original Moondae. “Text Minji that we’ll be a little late and to feel free to order without us.”

“Okay…” Chaeyeon said, obviously drained from crying as she took out her generic phone and typed a message out to Minji. She sniffled as her small fingers dashed across the screen before sending the message and immediately flopping her phone to the side, bouncing on the seat before settling. “I’m tired from crying.”

“Take a nap,” he said. “I’ll wake you when you’re there.”

“Mmnnn, I don’t wanna…” she complained, but her eyes were closing. “You’re stupid. You’re always gonna be stupid for doing that, forever.”

“I’m stupid.” Moondae couldn’t fight against the truth of the statement. “I’m stupid forever. Go to bed, so you don’t become stupid like me.”

“….Mmmm…”

Chaeyeon stopped talking and he soon heard her soft breaths, watching the small rise and fall of her chest through his rear view mirror. Chaeyeon’s eyes were still red, but hopefully by the time they got to the café, she’d look less swollen. He let out a shaky sigh, paying attention to every crack on the road to keep his mind off of what happened. Moondae was now taking the scenic route, but just by himself. He passed through a long stretch of trees, their leaves creating a shade above as he drove, the sunlight shining through the empty spots.

It was hard to formulate an opinion on the original Moondae. He felt so many things toward him. Was it pity? Could it even be hatred? He didn’t know, and he didn’t know if he’d ever know. He remained an enigma through and through. There were too many questions left unanswered and the ones that were answered weren’t satisfactory enough. Having a kid at seventeen, being abandoned at eighteen, struggling for three years through the stigma of being a single teenage parent and a male omega before ending up with a bottle of sleeping pills— he couldn’t blame him for the action he took. It was a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but was it actually temporary?

Moondae had a soulmate, someone inexplicably tied to him for the rest of his life. There was so much misinformation on the phenomenon since it had been romanticized by the media. Soulmates, to the world, were perceived as lovebirds who were meant to be together forever, and it was true, but the reality of such a situation wasn’t displayed. The only thing that seemed to be correct was that as soon as you met, you could never go back to normal. It’s your perfect half, and as soon as one perished, the other would follow soon after. He recalled the doctor’s words about how your body would wait for your soulmate to come back, and that anxiety without being in your soulmate’s presence was common.

Soulmates were legally identified by one thing: the natural presence of their soulmate’s pheromones in their scent gland. It could be a small trace amount, but no matter what, there was always a tinge of their soulmate’s pheromones with them at all times. It could only be identified by cross-referencing them. That meant whenever Moondae put out his pheromones, somewhere in that wave of vanilla, the smallest and tiniest hint of dark coffee would be among them.

‘What else is there about soulmates…?’ he thought to himself. ‘Feeling each other’s emotions is obviously wrong, because I don’t feel any of that asshole’s. Tasting sweet is another thing, but I have zero way to confirm that. Is that really it? It seems there aren’t any benefits to having a soulmate, whatsoever.’

Moondae’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. He could never get rid of what happened to the original Moondae; he could only move forward. Away from this soulmate bullshit, away from the stigma of being an omega, away from all of the feelings surrounding it.

‘Am I just running away?’ he thought to himself. He might be, but running away was his only option right now. He wasn’t the only person affected by this. Moondae tapped his fingers as he was at a red light, staring into it. Red, still red, and then blue. Deep blue.

‘Fucking Cheongryeo,’ he thought to himself. ‘If Moondae died you should be dead too.’

Wait, shouldn’t he be dead?

“…Fuck,” he said under his breath. Yeah, if a soulmate dies he should be dead, but how wasn’t he? If doctors weren’t able to figure it out, there was no way in hell that Moondae would be able to figure it out. He decided to stop asking himself questions that definitely lacked a clear answer.

He arrived in the parking lot, carefully slotting himself in between the white lines before parking his car and taking off his seatbelt.

“Chaeyeon,” Moondae said quietly, leaning into the backseat to touch her leg, shaking her slightly. “Chaeyeon, it’s time to get up. We’re here.”

Chaeyeon was slowly roused from her sleep, her eyelids sticking together before pulling them open. Yeah, her eyes were still a bit red and swollen, but it wasn’t as bad as before. She still looked pretty upset (rightfully so) as she took her seatbelt off and exited the car, taking her bag with her. He followed after her, closing the door and locking it with his fob key, watching as Chaeyeon stood with a blank expression, her fingertips twitching.

“…Chaeyeon?” he asked.

Chaeyeon continued to stare blankly out at the parking lot before frowning slightly. “I made you promise, but you don’t keep promises. I’m still… I’m still scared.”

Moondae stood next to her and put a hand on her head as he breathed in the air around him. It wasn’t exactly the most fresh air in the world, considering they were in the city, but it made his mind feel clearer. “I break a lot of promises. Sometimes… I promise things I can’t keep because I think it’ll apply forever, but then I get proven wrong. This one is something I have to make last forever, regardless of what happens. I won’t make myself die, Chaeyeon. I’ll wait for it to come to me naturally, when it’s time.”

She clenched her tiny hand. “You have to make sure you have a lot of time before that happens, okay?”

“I’ll try to eat well, sleep well, and be healthy,” he said. “That way I can stay with you for longer.”

Chaeyeon turned her head towards Moondae and held out her arms, her eyes becoming redder, as if she was going to cry at any second. “C-Can you hold me?”

Wordlessy, Moondae lifted her up into his arms as tears left her eyes, falling down her cheeks effortlessly. She didn’t even make a sound as she blinked them away, burying her head close to Moondae’s scent gland. Moondae supported her backside with his left forearm as he used his right hand to slowly pat her back. He comforted her as he walked towards the entrance of the kids café, not letting her go for a single second.

…Moondae didn’t know if he was doing anything right, at this point.

Moondae met with Sooji and Minji, with Chaeyeon still in his arms. He followed the directions that Chaeyeon told him, watching as Minji restlessly kicked her legs back and forth, nearly done with the drink she had received. Upon seeing Moondae approaching with Chaeyeon in his arms, she jumped up out of her seat and ran towards them. “Chaeyeon! You’re finally here, I was soooo bored waiting— Oh.”

Chaeyeon peeled her face away from Moondae’s shirt, revealing her red and puffy eyes. She sniffled and gave Minji a weak smile. “H-Hi…” she said before turning to look at Moondae. “It’s okay if you put me down…”

“Are you sure?” Moondae asked. Chaeyeon nodded and he let Chaeyeon back down on the ground, a concerned expression on his face. He ignored the splotch of wet that had quickly started to dry on his shirt. He looked to Sooji, who had her legs crossed as she sipped on her americano. He… couldn’t read the look on her face, but her gaze was trained onto him.

Minji immediately bounded up to Chaeyeon and hugged her close. “You’re okay! You’re okay… You’re fine. Are you hurt? Do you wanna have something to drink?”

Chaeyeon sniffled as she took Minji’s hand. “…Can we go play instead?”

Minji squeezed Chaeyeon’s hand and nodded, looking to Moondae and her mom for permission. Sooji just gave her a lazy thumbs up and Moondae nodded hesitantly. Minji then unzipped Chaeyeon’s jacket and helped to take her backpack off, shoving them into Moondae’s hands before she dragged Chaeyeon away towards the large indoor play area, dead set on soothing her soul.

Moondae watched as they bounded away and took off their shoes to go into the play area, which had glass walls for the parents to keep watch on them. They opened a glass door and went behind a play structure, out of his sight but not his mind. He heard Sooji hum, and he turned to face her. She had a small smile on her face.

“So, I assume you had a somewhat fruitful conversation?” she questioned as she put the straw to her mouth and blew bubbles into her drink. They weren’t seated anywhere fancy— it was a public table space that was situated near the corner. It was a wooden square table with four chairs, one of them with Minji’s bag slung across the back of it as well along with her puffer jacket. Sooji had put on a hoodie to cover up her tattoos since they were in a space with children, probably not wanting to deal with the stigma of having them.

Moondae walked up to her, his expression neutral as always. He slung Chaeyeon’s jacket and backpack on one of the seats and took the space directly next to it, which happened to also be next to Sooji.

‘I get why Moondae didn’t want to make friends,’ he thought to himself as he looked at Sooji’s face, a small smile tugging at her lips. ‘This feels uncomfortable.’

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” he stated as he perused the menu, not really reading it.

“I don’t think you need to hide it, you know,” she said as she leaned forward to inspect Moondae further, who immediately took a step back. “At least from me. I’m sure you have a good reason to hide it from other people, but birds of a feather should flock together.”

“I’m not hiding anything,” he said as he closed his menu. Whatever, he’d have a caramel macchiato. “I’m going to pick up drinks from the café. Do you want anything else?”

“I’ll have an iced green tea latte. We can order more when the kids come back,” she said. “Oh, I’ll pay for you and Chaeyeon; don’t worry about it.”

“…I can pay for it just fine, don’t worry.”

There was no way in hell he was going to owe this woman any favors.

He ordered their drinks and they came out faster than he liked them to. The more time he could spend not having a one-on-one conversation with her, the better. Moondae wasn’t an idiot, he knew what she wanted to talk about with him. With Chaeyeon, having a kid at a young age… It made him uncomfortable, even though he didn’t know why. It seemed Moondae’s residual feelings and regrets kept lurking, even if he was gone.

He came back with a tray and placed it on the table, gingerly placing their respective glasses in front of each other. He sat down at his seat and looked at Sooji, who still seemed to be staring at him with a smile.

“So~?” she questioned.

What the hell was she trying to start?

“‘So’ what…?” he questioned hesitantly. Sooji’s smile dropped a little bit at his response.

“C’mon, I won’t spill it to anyone— people like us already have a hard enough time as it is. I’m not going to throw you under the bus, especially when my daughter loves your daughter so much.”

“My niece, you mean,” he corrected (although the statement itself was definitely incorrect.)

“Oh come on,” she scoffed. “You know that isn’t real. That lie can work on everyone except for me, and I only pieced it together because Chaeyeon kept dropping hints. You’re her mom. You’re just like me.”

“I don’t know what Chaeyeon’s been telling you, but she’s just a kid. You shouldn’t take her comments upfront.”

“You of all people know damn well that isn’t true,” she hissed, dropping the honorifics. Moondae glared at her, but she continued to speak. “Chaeyeon always tries her best for you. I’ve been trying to have any sort of candid conversation with you for the longest time because I know what it’s like to be in your shoes. I’m still in them, and I’m still struggling. You don’t have to be alone in this.”

Moondae knew that Chaeyeon asked him to make a friend, but he didn’t know if he could. Not with her.

“If you really cared about me that much, then I would suggest not saying anything. You don’t know anything about me or Chaeyeon’s situation, so you can’t expect me—”

“You tried to kill yourself.”

Moondae stilled and looked Sooji dead in the eyes. They had passion in them, a fire that refused to be snubbed out as she bared her fangs and growled. “You think I wouldn’t recognize your downward spiral? Chaeyeon stopped describing you as ‘tired’ and started to describe you as ‘not feeling well’ and ‘sick.’ Her personality started to change completely. You think I wouldn’t see? She comes over to my apartment to play with my kid all the time— of course I’d know.”

“…Fine,” he conceded, crossing his arms. It was useless to argue when somebody had made up their mind. Besides, he might be able to glean more information about the original Moondae and Chaeyeon from this. “So how much do you know? Also… how obvious is it?”

Sooji leaned back in her chair, a laugh getting pulled from her lips although the situation wasn’t funny whatsoever. She wasn’t smiling. “I can’t believe that’s what you’re worried about. Okay, no— I won’t judge. I don’t know a lot and I wasn’t directly told anything, but I know you’re Chaeyeon’s biological mother on top of your suicide attempt. As for how obvious it is? Not obvious. I only managed to pull this information out after knowing her and interacting with her pretty frequently, and even with that I still needed to do my own guesswork.”

The method really was effective, after all. Moondae managed to keep them safe for a really long time. Chaeyeon also contributed a lot to this by keeping quiet.

“So why talk to me?” Moondae questioned as he picked his glass up and stirred it with his straw. “Does it really concern you? We might be teen moms, but there’s nothing else to connect us, besides our children.”

Sooji went silent for a little bit before responding, his voice quieter and a lot more subdued. “…Maybe it doesn’t concern me whatsoever, but I didn’t want to do nothing about it. I think if I found out you actually died and left Chaeyeon all alone, I’d regret not trying harder.”

“So it’s your own guilty conscience.”

“I guess?” she said with an embarrassed laugh. “I just… I know what it’s like.”

No, she didn’t. Not with all of the bullshit he currently had to claw through and deal with. She didn’t have a bigger and more pressing reason to hide away from the world like Moondae did.

“Stop giving that look that says, ‘No, you don’t.’” She crossed her arms and furrowed her eyebrows. Damn, he must’ve deadpanned. “It might not be the same situation, but it’s pretty damn similar. You don’t find a lot of people like us, or if you do, they’re either trying to actively hide, severely suicidal, or they’re dead.”

“So we’re both hiding,” Moondae stated.

“I’m actually the secret third option: out and proud! Or, well, I am now. I used to be the second option.”

Oh.

“I said that I’m not that different from you, you know? The suicide rate among teen moms is pretty high. It shouldn’t be too surpesing that I tried to kill myself too.”

A chill went up Moondae’s spine. She said it so nonchalantly. He didn’t say anything in response. His hands stopped stirring as he held the straw with his index and thumb finger and stared at the table. He didn’t know if he could look at his reflection in the glass cup right now.

“Teen moms, especially omegas like us, get abandoned by society. They love framing us as baby making machines, but as soon as we have a kid when we’re also kids? We amount to nothing. We’re bullied, we’re scorned, we’re told we’re nothing but whores… Up until recently, we would even get expelled from schools for having a kid. The government doesn’t provide us aid, and abortion was only decriminalized recently.” She sighed before continuing. “I fell through that hole too— that downward spiral. I had nothing and could never amount to anything, so I decided to end it.”

“…I see why you said we’re similar, now,” he mumbled, not wanting to make eye contact. His voice was soft, feeling slightly awkward. He wasn’t the one who tried to kill himself, it was the original Moondae. Did he even have the right to listen to something so vulnerable? “…Thank you for living.”

“Hey, you too. I’m glad we’re both alive,” she laughed. “I’m glad, but… I just wish our circumstances leading this point were different. Chaeyeon found out, yeah? About your attempt.”

“…She’s probably known about it for a while now,” he said as he looked at the caramel macchiato slowly melt. “She broke down over it in the car. She couldn’t keep it in.”

Sooji let out an exasperated sigh. “Man, of course she found out… She’s a smart kid, you know? I wish I could’ve done the same with Minji.”

“…You couldn’t?”

“I couldn’t,” she hummed. “She was the one who found me, after all.”

Shit.

“Ahah, sorry, that got really, really serious. I didn’t mean to bring it up so casually,” she laughed awkwardly and averted her eyes from him. She started to drum her fingers on the table as dhe continued. “I really don’t mean to give you my life story. It’s just… I think we have a lot in common. Raising a kid is really hard.”

He really didn’t want to hear it, but he didn’t want to not hear it either. To be honest, Moondae still couldn’t understand why the original Moondae would do it when he had a child he seemed to love so much by his side. Chaeyeon loved him, too.

“…You don’t have to tell me everything,” he stated. “I just… I just don’t understand why you’d kill yourself if you loved your kid so much, and your kid loved you back.”

Sooji’s voice became quieter. “…I think about that too. I don’t know why I did it either, I just… reached a breaking point. I got expelled, kicked out, ended up homeless for a bit… Then I got my life back together, but I still wasn’t happy.

“Minji was six when I did it. I tried to hang myself. She found me pretty quickly. She managed to call the emergency number, and then I was rushed to the hospital. I was just so… I did it because I didn’t have the courage to be a mom anymore. I got scared of everything. I hated the way that people looked at me and talked to my daughter. I mean, I’d get it if it was just me, but my kid is innocent. I thought I was doing the right thing by trying to die, but the aftereffects of my decision made me realize I was a horrible person.”

Sooji’s hands started to shake as she took a deep breath to continue her story. “I fucked up really bad. The way she acts around me after what happened breaks my heart. I can remember her face after she saw me again and I just— I couldn’t do that to her again. I damaged her for life. After my suicide attempt, child services took her until I could get back on my feet. I got a good job, started to take care of myself, and Minji came back to me just last year.”

Moondae felt a chill go up the spine, the conversation making him feel nauseous. His hands started to get clammy and his vision went unfocused, but he blinked and brought himself back to reality by clenching his fingers. Sooji didn’t look any better than him at the recalling of her own events.

“I realized that in order to take care of a child you have to take care of yourself as well,” her voice trembled. “I… I didn’t want to live. I didn’t want to try and be better, and I ended up hurting her. I’ll probably be spending my whole life trying to make it up to her.”

Moondae was already doing that despite the fact that he wasn’t even the one to do it. He knew nothing about Moondae, about him and Chaeyeon’s relationship from before, and he didn’t know how to be a parent. Would he be strong enough to keep her safe? Moondae had already failed by trying to take his life, so what was the point? Maybe Chaeyeon would be better off without him. He didn’t know if could do this.

“I… I think I fucked up too,” he admitted. He started to get chills. “I fucked up badly. I—”

“Moondae-oppa,” she said as she put a hand on top of his. He looked up at Sooji. Despite the fact that she was only twenty-two years old, she looked as if she had been battered and broken by the world around her. “They’re all we have. We can’t give up on them. Even after everything, they still love us, even if it feels horrible that they do. Don’t break her trust like I did with Minji. We should try and be better, if not for our sake, than for theirs. You should just think, ‘I can do this.’”

Moondae felt like such a hypocrite. Those were the exact words he told Ahyeon, but he wasn’t even abiding by what he said to him. Moondae had to think that he could do it, even if he didn’t feel like he could. He wasn’t Chaeyeon’s parent but she counted on him, loved him, and was there for him through thick and thin. Moondae… loved Chaeyeon, too. It hadn’t been very long, but he could describe the feeling as love.

“Hah,” he scoffed, holding his head down. He wasn’t like this. He had changed so quickly in the span of a few weeks and it didn’t make sense, but he felt so vulnerable and so attached to Chaeyeon. If she hated him, he would probably hate himself as well. “How did this even happen…”

Sooji removed her hand from Moondae and a sad soft laugh came from her. “I don’t know either! Only thing I can do is move forward. It’s been hard, but… I think I’ve wanted someone to talk to about it for a long time. Thank you, for letting me get it off my chest.”

Moondae looked up at her, his caramel macchiato fully melted and watery. Sooji’s drink wasn’t that different. “…Thank you for telling me.”

He looked over to the screen monitors above that recorded the inside of the play place for the parents to look at their kids, and in the corner, he could see Minji and Chaeyeon sitting down and talking with each other. Minji had her arm over Chaeyeon’s shoulders, leaning her down onto herself. Sooji looked up as well and smiled, a giggle escaping her as she rested her head in her hand. He could see the love she held for Minji just by looking at her, her eyes soft and dreamy as she watched her daughter.

“They get along really well. Think they’ll get married in the future?” Sooji teased.

They hadn’t even presented yet, asshole. Sure, they could do a test for their secondary gender early, but it was a big hassle on top of it being expensive. Besides, it was too early to think about marriage, twenty years too early, actually. He’d let Chaeyeon decide what she wants for herself. She could even be unmarried forever and stay with him, if she wanted to.

“Eager to have more family?” he questioned.

“Nah, just eager to watch her grow up well. I already have all the family I need with just her.”

At least they shared the same sentiments.

Chaeyeon and Minji came back, running as Minji held her hand and dragged her forward. Chaeyeon almost tripped over her own feet but recovered easily as they finally reached the table. Chaeyeon looked a lot better; her eyes were no longer swollen and a small and embarrassed smile was on her face.

“We’re back!” Minji announced as she let go of Chaeyeon’s hand and ran full force into Sooji’s arms. She made and ‘oof!’ sound at the impact of her kid just straight up running into her, but she put her arms around her.

“Owww…” Sooji said. “Welcome back, but don’t run into my stomach next time…”

Minji seemed to not pay attention as she snuggled herself into Sooji’s embrace, a cat-like grin on her face. Chaeyeon sheepishly walked toward Moondae and decided to climb into his lap, sitting in between his legs. She looked up at him for a second before hugging him tight, breathing in his familiar vanilla scent. Moondae’s hands hovered over her before he finally placed them on her, brushing her hair back and caressing the side of her face.

“I love you, Mommy… I really love you…” she murmured with a smile on her face. “I love you so much.”

Moondae’s breaths became shaky, but he held in his tears. He felt so vulnerable when she was around. Not that long ago, he said to himself that maternal instinct wasn’t real, and maybe that was true to some degree. Some people definitely didn’t have the urge or want to have children (and they weren’t wrong or weird for that), but now that he could look at it from the perspective of an omega, he realized that urge was something that had been inherent to him, no matter the body he was in. As he looked down at Chaeyeon, he realized he had always wanted a family. It was something he’d been chasing after unknowingly ever since his parents passed away, yet was never able to achieve. He was… scared.

Moondae still didn’t feel like he was capable, but he was going to try his best. Little by little, step by step, he was going to be the best he could be for Chaeyeon’s sake.

“…I love you so much, Chaeyeon. Mommy loves you so much,” he whispered as he kissed the top of her head and held her close.

Moondae had the family he always wanted.

Chapter Text

The two families spent a good portion of their afternoon there. Moondae, admittedly, knew nothing about kids cafés, but Sooji was more than happy to teach him. It was obviously catered towards kids, but also for parents in order for them to spend quality time together. He never really ‘played’ with Chaeyeon, which he realized was a bit odd. He watched her draw at her desk, helped with some of her homework assignments, and listened to her enthusiastically talk about VTIC, but he never really sat down to spend time with her. This was a golden opportunity for him.

Whether it was going down a slide together, playing with a kid’s plastic cooking set, or running around the play structure for a game of tag, it reminded him of when he was also a kid. Well, sort of. As a kid, Gunwoo stopped ‘playing around’ at a pretty young age. By 5th grade he had already decided he was too ‘old’ to do things like that, when in reality he was a ten year old kid. Maybe he just wanted to impress his parents or something. He kind of wished he hadn’t acted like that, because he would’ve been able to spend more quality time with them instead of studying all the time. He’d always known that Chaeyeon was a kid, but watching her with a bright smile on her face as she tugged on his sleeve and led him to the next area solidified that thought. No matter how mature or responsible she seemed, at the end of the day, she was a kid.

Moondae needed to start going out of his way to spend time with Chaeyeon. If Moondae really did fail in debuting as an idol, he wanted to give her some good memories to remember him by. That was probably the thought process of the original Moondae, considering all of the places they went and the pictures he took of her. More importantly, he just wanted to see a Chaeyeon that felt comfortable enough to act like a kid.

They said their goodbyes and Moondae exchanged contact information with both Minji and Sooji, though he only had Minji’s in the worst case scenario.

“Y’know,” Sooji began to say as they walked into the parking lot, going towards her car since it was closer to the entrance. “I wouldn’t mind Chaeyeon staying over at my place while you’re doing that audition show. She and Minji basically have the same schedule, so it wouldn’t be that big of a hassle. As long as you pay me for food money, I’d be glad to do it. It’s probably less expensive than a babysitter.”

“…Are you really willing to do that?” Moondae asked as Chaeyeon held onto his pant leg, crying ‘pleasepleasepleaseplease—!’ over and over again at the invite.

Minji was also doing the same thing, looking at Moondae with puppy eyes as she held onto Sooji and shook her arm, trying to tell her to sweeten the deal. Sooji laughed as Minji jumped up and down, before saying to Moondae, “I’d be glad to do so. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

They weren’t that close. Acquaintances at most.

“…Sure,” he said. “Thanks. Also, I’ll pay you for your work— I’m not going to just hand you food money. That’s my only condition.”

“You’re so generous, Oppa~” Sooji teased. “That’d be really great. I love my job, but since I just started last year, I don’t get paid as much as my seniors. The extra cash would help a lot.”

“…You work as…?”

“A tattoo artist,” she said. “Just finished my training not that long ago. Lucky for me that it got legalized a few years back or else I would’ve been committing a crime. Or, well, I was, since I was in the training period.”

Right. There was an influx of laws (and amendments to pre-existing ones) that had been passed maybe one or two years ago by this point in time. One of those was the decriminalization of abortions and the legalization of tattooing someone without a medical license.

“You want one~?” Sooji gave him a toothy smile. “I’ll give you one free of charge!”

“No thanks,” he swiftly refused. “If I’m going to be an idol, I shouldn’t have a tattoo. I’m not interested in it, regardless.”

Chaeyeon giggled. “That’s right! Oppa is gonna be an idol, so he has to take good care of his body! What would all of the fans think?”

Sooji smiled at Chaeyeon before crouching to her knees and whispering into her ear, ignoring Minji’s upset expression as she left her side. “That’s right, he has to take good care of himself for many people. Also, Chaeyeon, you don’t have to call him ‘Oppa’ around me anymore. I know all about it, and your ‘oppa’ is fine with it as well.”

“Huh?” Chaeyeon looked at Moondae with wide eyes. “I can call you that now? Really?”

“You can call me that around Sooji and Minji now,” Moondae confirmed. He then turned his head to look at Minji, whose cheeks were puffed up like a squirrel. She had her fists clenched and Moondae turned back to Sooji, whispering a bit to try and keep it out of Minji’s earshot. “Actually, we should explain to Minji that—”

“I’ve known for a long time!”

All three of them turned to look at Minji with a shocked expression. Her eyebrows were knitted and her nose was scrunched in anger. She ran up to Chaeyeon and hugged her close, along with her mom. She looked at Chaeyeon with a smile on her face before she turned her face to Moondae with a slightly more serious expression. “I always wondered, ‘why does Chaeyeon call her mommy ‘oppa?’ Then I realized there must be a reason, so I just said nothing! I’m smart, aren’t I? When I saw you, I thought you were like my mommy, and that you were probably keeping quiet about it, so I kept quiet too! Some people keep secrets for a good reason, and I knew you did, so I didn’t ask or tell anyone!”

Moondae looked at Sooji, as if he could glean any answers from her, but she gave him a look that screamed, ‘I knew jack shit about this.’

“You knew, Minji?! You didn’t tell me!” Chaeyeon said as she held Minji in her arms and shook her around. Minji complained as she flailed around, her voice dragging out as noises of discomfort were extracted from her body.

“I didn’t say it ‘cause you called him ‘oppa’! How was I supposed to tell you?!”

Chaeyeon kept shaking her before she stopped and looked at her. She didn’t seem all that upset, but she crossed her arms and gave Minji a glare. “I know, but still! Hmph!”

“Hey, hey, hey, what matters is that it’s out in the open between the four of us, right?” Sooji questioned, trying to deescalate the situation. She put her hands on Minji’s shoulders and pulled her in for a big hug, peppering her cheek in kisses. “Minji, you did a very good job at recognizing in what situation a secret should be kept. Most of the time, if it doesn’t concern you, you shouldn’t say anything about it if it isn’t hurting anyone. I’m really proud of you for protecting Chaeyeon and her mom like that.”

“Really?! I did good, right?!”

“You did very well,” Sooji said as she patted Minji’s head and smiled. “But remember, we should keep it between us, okay? Don’t tell anyone willy-nilly, alright?”

Minji nodded as she kissed her mother’s cheek and giggled. “I was already doing that, so it’s okay!”

The situation resolved itself quickly as they separated from Sooji and Minji to walk to their own car. Minji enthusiastically waved goodbye at Chaeyeon, and Chaeyeon gave her a shy and small wave back as they parted. Minji gave her a big smile before she disappeared into the backseat of the car.

Moondae held Chaeyeon’s hand as they walked toward their car. She had a small smile on her face. “Mommy, you made a good friend, didn’t you?”

“…I met someone who has a lot of experience,” he said as he opened the backseat for her, watching as Chaeyeon crawled into her booster seat. Her backpack was quickly put at the foot of her seat. “You intentionally kept telling her clues about me, didn’t you? You played matchmaker.”

“‘Matchmaker’…? I don’t know what that means, but from the way you say it, I think that’s correct…” Chaeyeon murmured. “I thought that you two would get along really well. Minji’s mom is also kind of, hmm… mean? Or, no, not mean… Um, a bit strict I guess, in the way that she treats herself. You’re pretty strict on yourself too. It’s a good thing sometimes, but it’s also bad sometimes too.”

Moondae would consider that a pretty accurate observation of himself. Moondae didn’t care much for other people’s opinion of him but he did care for himself. Shouldn’t everyone? Of course, caring for himself also extended to other people if they were included in the things he was trying to achieve, but having expectations and goals weren’t inherently a bad thing. Though, he could see the argument of going too far.

“I think that’s a fair assumption,” he agreed as he opened up the driver’s seat. “Do you not like that side of me?”

“The sides of you that are stupid do make me angry… But they’re all you, so I deal with it. Mommy wouldn’t be ‘Mommy’ if you didn’t have all of your stupid parts, it’s just up to me to make sure you aren’t too stupid. If you’re too stupid, I’ll just get really angry so you don’t do it again.”

Chaeyeon sure loved that word.

“You don’t have to be the one getting angry anymore,” he said. “Minji’s mom can do that as well. You shouldn’t have to look out for me, Chaeyeon. I’m an adult— you should just have fun being a kid.”

Chaeyeon smiled a little as the car’s engine roared to life as Moondae started reversing the car to get out of his parking spot. “I’ll have lots of fun then.”

Good.

“I’ll have lots of fun watching your future clips as an idol!”

Maybe not so good.

Not too long after that, Idol Inc. had their first promotional event before the first episode aired. It wasn’t too extraordinary or interesting— you sang a song and answered some questions. Of course, Moondae wasn’t really interviewed or directed any questions since that seemed to be exclusive to those with a good visual stat. Moondae side-eyed Ahyeon, who was practically glowing as he handed him a gummy. He did have a brief chat with Cha Eugene, and he hoped that they’d get closer. The number one winner from the previous timeline was someone he’d have to stick by. The one thing that did surprise him throughout all of this is that he seemed to have a fan, and that fan in question was someone he knew back when he was Gunwoo.

Well, ‘knew’ was a bit too friendly. He had a few interactions with her, ending with her cussing him out because of the prices of his photo data. It seemed she had switched from stanning her previous idol to him, which was… interesting, to say the least. At least he wasn’t driving expensive cars and getting a DUI, but he wondered how people would react when they realized he had a kid.

‘Probably not well,’ he thought to himself as Keun Sejin and Ahyeon took a photo with him. He didn’t want to seem close to them, dammit, but now a photo of the three of them would be floating around on the internet.

Chaeyeon seemed to be really excited about it.

“Who are these people?!” Chaeyeon questioned as she shoved her phone in his face and pointed at the screen, showing the photo of Moondae, Ahyeon, and Keun Sejin. “Oh, wow, he’s super pretty…! And this guy is really tall! Oh— none of them are as cool and pretty as my mommy, though!”

Moondae sighed as he folded laundry, watching Chaeyeon giddily scroll through picture after picture and article after article. He put the folded laundry to the side and told Chaeyeon, “Hey, don’t search me up too often. You have a phone for emergency scenarios, not to ego surf on my behalf.”

“I don’t know what that means, but I won’t search you up that often,” Chaeyeon said, half paying attention and half definitely not. She kept scrolling through her phone and hummed. “You’re so strict with my internet access anyways…”

Damn right he was. Her internet usage was disabled unless she was at home, where he watched her like a hawk. Most kids her age didn’t have a phone, but considering their predicament, he needed to have communication with his daughter. She didn’t really go online anyway, from what he saw. She didn’t even have any of her own accounts (he made sure of that) and she also didn’t do much other than watch videos on idols, which was relatively harmless. At least the original Moondae was as strict about internet safety as he was.

The first episode of Idol Inc. aired, with a bunch of men packed on set once again. Chaeyeon was staying over at Minji’s place, probably getting way too excited over the episode premiere. Sooji had sent him a photo of the two girls curled up on the couch with a blanket and a bowl of popcorn before he got to the location.

The reactions were pretty good, up until the part where he had to sing POP☆CON. Moondae put his head in his hands as he listened to the other participants start to laugh. He could only imagine Chaeyeon, Minji, and Sooji barreling on the floor laughing at him. This was his own personal hell.

Moondae was correct at the assumption of Chaeyeon laughing her ass off when he went to pick her up. She was still cackling with tears in her eyes as he hoisted her like a sack of potatoes and put her on her booster seat.

“I-I’m going to pee myself!”

“No you aren’t,” Moondae hissed as his daughter kept laughing. Sooji was covering her mouth with her hand, desperately trying to contain her laughter, but they still spilled over. Minji was crying-laughing into the crook of her neck as they stood outside their apartment, watching as Moondae sat back in the driver’s seat with a clear look of embarrassment and frustration.

“Pfft…! Y-You’re really interesting, you know that, Oppa?”

“If you’re going to laugh, then laugh,” he said through grit teeth, ignoring Chaeyeon’s strained gasps for air as she kept cackling, her voice ringing throughout the car. “I’ll see you in a few days. I’ll make sure to— Stop looking at me like that.”

Sooji’s face was scrunched up with tears in her eyes, face red as she desperately held her laughter. Her shoulders were shaking, and Moondae knew that the only thing playing through her mind whenever she saw his face was him furiously dancing to POP☆CON like a maniac. He clicked his tongue and started to drive away, hearing Sooji’s manic chortle as he started to leave. Chaeyeon calmed down as they were on the road home, rubbing the tears from her eyes. She chuckled a little bit and looked at him with a smile.

“Wow, Mommy, you’re really funny. That was really, really good! No wonder you didn’t tell me anything!” Chaeyeon grinned. “It’s better to watch something without being spoiled, hehe! I can’t believe we ate popcorn while watching you dance to POP☆CON, ahahah!”

Damn it all. It wasn’t going to be any better when his daughter watched him do a PR livestream. Moondae knew damn well that she’d be watching him in real time. In fact, she’d probably be the first person to click on his stream as soon as they went online. Moondae would’ve scolded her to go to sleep since it was Thursday on a school night, but he gave her a free pass this time.

“I’ll be back as soon as I’m done,” Moondae said as he pulled on a facemask and put his shoes on. Chaeyeon was watching him getting ready to leave, leaning against the wall with a slight smile on her face. “We can go out to eat after.”

“Heheheheh~” Chaeyeon giggled mischievously before striking the beginning pose to POP☆CON— the heart hand and the lifted leg. “You’re my POP☆CON! Do well, Mommy!”

This was his legacy now.

People’s reactions to him over the first episode were split into either hating him or loving him, with little to no inbetween. Images and clips of his dance made waves on online forums as a meme, and the reaction only ended up being positive because Moondae was good at singing. The response was so good that he managed to get a roll for another rare characteristic by the system, but he’d use that later. He had solidified his position and decided that in order to balance out all of the negative responses, he had to appear earnest and friendly.

A mukbang wasn’t what he had in mind, but it’s what he ended up with. He switched his prize balls with Ahyeon at the last second, scoring with ‘Frozen Food’. There was no way in hell he was going to use a flower crown and a guitar— he’d just look, as Chaeyeon would say, ‘stupid.’ Besides, he knew Ahyeon didn’t do well with frozen food. It was a win-win situation for the both of them; a deal that he couldn’t refuse.

He ate boneless chicken feet and earnestly reviewed the food while speaking to the camera. “First of all, it isn’t too spicy, and I think being grilled helps it too. You can keep eating it without stopping even though there’s spice. There also isn’t any smell to it or aftertaste. The texture is also really good.”

It was only when he was given extra time for being in the top percent of contestants as well as the donations coming in that he realized how many people were watching.

The questions were pretty straightforward and Moondae answered as if he had gone through rigorous media training. He was vague with his answers, but he also gave enough for people to not ask more. He also stalled well enough to avoid answering some of the more difficult things, like a self-introduction. He was residing in someone else’s body— if he managed to say something that was inconsistent with how the old Moondae was like, it’d set off alarm bells with the people who recognized him.

And thus, Moondae’s image had changed into something different. Positive, of course, but different.

“‘Moon Puppy’…?” Moondae questioned as he flipped the pork belly on the grill. They were currently out having Korean barbecue, per Chaeyeon’s request. I mean, she was really the only one who’d be eating— Moondae had eaten a lot of chicken feet.

Chaeyeon had been suspicious of Moondae when he received his sample for the frozen foods a few days prior to the livestream. They both tried the different options together, and when Chaeyeon asked why he was suddenly eating frozen food, he simply replied that she’d find out soon. Chaeyeon did in fact find out, and had even gone through the liberty of screenshotting a few comments from the stream in real-time. She was currently scrolling through forum websites on his behalf (though Moondae was obviously seated right next to her to police the content.)

“They’re saying you’re a puppy!” Chaeyeon giggled as she used her chopsticks and put food in her mouth. It was nice to see her eat so well— she was still a bit uncoordinated with the way she held her chopsticks, but he could see she was getting better every day. “Look at this one!”

It was a picture of him side-by-side to a picture of a dog eating chicken feet. The post had been shared over four thousand times. Moondae’s face went a little red as he used scissors to cut the meat and place some onto Chaeyeon’s plate, reading some of the comments.

- seriously, the oldest member has the most aegyo of all HAHAH

- who’s a good puppy??? you are!! yes you are!!!

- moondae-ya, this noona will buy you as much chicken feet you want…!

- moondae, eat well and grow big…! our puppy has to make sure to get a lot of nutrients!

These were seriously embarrassing. It felt like they were jabbing at both his age and his height. Whatever, if they thought it was something to fawn over, it was better for him— more people to put their stocks into him.

“I’m too old to be called a puppy,” he mumbled with a blush. “You’re closer to being a puppy than me.”

“But everyone online already thinks you’re a puppy! You can’t disagree when everyone thinks it’s true, right? You’re really cute, and you know it too! I’ve always known it, and now everybody else does!” Chaeyeon boasted as she picked up a piece of meat and stretched it out to Moondae. He took it and casually chewed on it, watching the smoke get pulled into the vent above.

It felt weird to be called a puppy at twenty-nine years of age. It wasn’t even his age that made it strange— it was the fact that Moondae had literally given birth to a pup. It wasn’t actually him, but the knowledge made him feel a bit embarrassed.

The second episode was… okay. He and Chaeyeon watched it together, and he had zero idea when and how two beer cans ended up next to him, but it just happened that way. Chaeyeon seemed enamored whenever he appeared on the screen, vigorously pointing whenever his face appeared even for a split second, shouting and screaming ‘That’s you!’ over and over again. They didn’t edit him maliciously, and it seemed they took his PR live’s reception into account when they edited him. It wasn’t anything special, but at least it wasn’t bad.

As for the third episode…

Lee Sejin (Keun): moondae hyung, what do you think about watching episode 3 together with our team??

Moondae was typing a reply to politely decline when Keun Sejin sent him yet another message.

Lee Sejin (Keun): ahhh wait don’t tell me you’re not coming!!! ahhh, it’ll be sad when you’re the only one missing, hyung…! even lee sejin-hyungnim said he’d come!

Hey, why the hell was Lee Sejin being referred to as ‘hyungnim’ when Moondae was just ‘hyung’? Moondae was older than him.

He looked over to Chaeyeon as she slipped her backpack on and zipped up her jacket. He was already waiting by the door, his shoes and jacket already on. She toddled over to the entrance and slipped her shoes on, looking at Moondae with bright eyes.

“…Chaeyeon?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes, Mommy?”

“I got a text from some of my teammates from the mission I did, and they’re wondering if I wanted to go and watch the episode with them. Is that alright with you? I know we promised to watch it together,” he said.

Chaeyeon crooked her head to the side in confusion as to why he had to even ask. “That’s okay. They’re your friends, right?”

“…Well—”

“Then you should go! I’ll just be at the academy, and then when you’re done, you’ll come to pick me up!” Chaeyeon said before giving him a thumbs up and opening the front door. “Good job! I hope you have more friends!”

“…”

Moondae said nothing as he walked out with her and locked the door behind him. He spent the rest of the week training his stats and taking care of Chaeyeon. Of course, he would occasionally meet up with Sooji and Minji, since they were quite intertwined with Chaeyeon’s life now. It was mostly small chatter whenever he picked up Chaeyeon from her academy at night, since Chaeyeon and Minji were essentially on the same schedule. It quickly became Friday and Moondae got to the location Keun Sejin had sent him, an officetel located pretty far from Seoul’s outer station. It was a nice house. Whoever was living here seemed to be doing well.

‘I’m envious,’ Moondae thought as they invited him in. He was immediately hit with the scent of lavender. Moondae just realized that due to the fact that they weren’t on set or recording, some of them wouldn’t be using scent blockers. If he was walking into someone’s home, of course that’d be the case.

Moondae wasn’t unfamiliar with pheromones, it’s just that the intensity increased now that he was an omega. As a beta, he didn’t have a scent gland or scent receptors that was as developed as an omega or alpha, like almost every other beta. Most people kept a wrap on their pheromones regardless of any suppressors or blockers, so up until now, Moondae never really encountered them on a frequent basis. He was just a bit surprised is all, but it wasn’t a negative reaction.

“This is the living room~” Keun Sejin said as he was led in. Ah, so the scent belonged to Keun Sejin. He didn’t expect for his pheromones to smell like lavenders, but he didn’t mind it.

The interior was really sleek— he couldn’t help but admire it. His own apartment building was on the older side and the security wasn’t that great, but it did its job. If only he could live in a house.

“It’s a nice place.”

“Right~? It’d be nice if I lived here!”

…Wait, this wasn’t Keun Sejin’s house? Then…

He turned his gaze to Ahyeon, who bowed a little bit. “Th-Thank you…”

That made a lot of sense.

Even though Ahyeon was the owner of the house, Keun Sejin seemed to be more comfortable than him. He laid down on the sofa while Ahyeon sat upright. He sighed and sat down on the sofa as well, waiting for the others to come so they could watch the next episode together. He’d just watch it and go home…

“Moondae-hyung, do you wanna order chicken feet~?” Keun Sejin teased as he pulled out his phone and looked at places to order delivery from. “I’m just kidding, chicken is probably fine.”

“O-Oh, I’ll pay for it…!” Ahyeon said as he crawled next to Sejin to look at his phone. Everyone had already arrived at the officetel, and they were currently waiting for the episode to air. Gold 1 and Gold 2 seemed to be messing around with each other while Lee Sejin and Choi Wongil were solitary, scrolling through their phones on their own.

‘Why would you come to a hangout only to go on your phone…?’ he thought before looking at his own phone, heavy in his hand. Yeah, he wasn’t any better. He looked toward Keun Sejin and Seon Ahyeon, training his eyes on them as they talked before turning his gaze back to his lap. ‘I wonder what all of their secondary genders are. Well, it doesn’t matter too much, especially with the anonymity law. If they don’t say it, you don’t know it… Well, unless proven otherwise.’

Keun Sejin was an alpha and Lee Sejin was a beta. If he was guessing correctly, Gold 1, 2 and Choi Wongil were probably betas. As for Seon Ahyeon, he had zero idea. His pheromones seemed relatively strong, so Moondae assumed he wasn’t a beta, but he didn’t know if he was an omega or an alpha.

‘Fuck, why am I even guessing? I couldn’t care less— I just need to debut.’

“Hey, guys! Wanna order chicken and beer? Oh, of course, the kids are only getting soda,” Keun Sejin said. The kids in question were only Gold 2 and Choi Wongil, since everyone else was of drinking age.

“That’s fine with me,” Lee Sejin replied.

“Yeah, get whatever’s good,” Choi Wongil said with a slight nod before he looked back at his phone.

Gold 1 and Gold 2 enthusiastically agreed with the choice. Moondae would probably have a few pieces of chicken and call it there, since he was planning on eating with Chaeyeon.

“Anything you want in specific, Moondae-hyung?” Keun Sejin asked him.

“Not really,” he said. “I don’t plan on eating much.”

“Seriously?” Gold 1 said with a slightly worried expression. “You’re seriously so skinny, hyung. The entire time we were practicing, I was scared you were going to collapse on the floor.”

“It’s no wonder Ahyeon-hyung keeps bringing snacks for you, you look like you’ll die young…” Gold 2 hummed.

Keun Sejin started to laugh a little bit. “I-I think you guys haven’t seen what I’ve seen… The first week of filming, Moondae ate like crazy. Moondae is just the type of person to never put on weight. If I had a metabolism like his, I’d become a pig. Hey, Ahyeon, didn’t you always eat with Moondae-hyung at meal times?”

Ahyeon stammered a little bit, looking at Moondae nervously. “O-Oh, well, he would always get second portions, and I gave him lots of snacks… B-But you should still eat, Moondae-hyung!”

They were definitely getting the wrong idea. It was nice that they were concerned about his health (rightfully so, he was concerned about the state of his body, too), but he knew of his disposition. Moondae was just naturally skinny. Also, his eating a lot was attributed to the trait he pulled, not because he actually ate like that…

“I’m going out to eat after this with someone; that’s why I’m not eating.”

“Your niece, right~?” Keun Sejin teased. Moondae had to stop himself from clicking his tongue but he gave a curt nod.

“Ah, dinner with family,” Gold 1 said with a nod. “That’s nice. I haven’t gone out for dinner with my family in a while since we started filming. I should probably plan one with them, to celebrate how successful our stage was!”

“I’ll order it then!” Keun Sejin announced.

“A-Ah, w-wait, let me pay for it…!”

Their chicken came in just as the episode started. Their eyes were glued to the screen, hoping and praying that their team was viewed in a positive light. The difference in how their team was edited in comparison to Ryu Cheongwoo’s was a bit sad, but they seemed to highlight Cheongwoo as the star participant in their team. In comparison, ‘October 31’ was edited to look a lot less gloomy. They were shown to be hardworking, and even their downs seemed to have a narrative beat that would instill hope back to them.

They all got pretty good screen time, except for Choi Wongil. The small argument that the two had over their part distribution was cut out and a lot of his interview probably had the same treatment, if he was guessing correctly. Choi Wongil most likely complained about the song or the process, which is why they cut it. It didn’t fit into the story they were trying to craft. Moondae, on the other hand, got a fair bit of screen time. His conversation with Seon Ahyeon was also shown, which all of the members teased him about. Ahyeon in particular became quite flustered over it.

After that was Keun Sejin’s legendary comment.

[“Moondae is really funny, isn’t he?”] Keun Sejin laughed a bit in the interview. [“I mean, he has the face of a tibetan fox while he comes up with all of these ideas! Seriously, haha!”]

It then cut to the numerous times Moondae had an expressionless face, even during high-stakes moments, like when they were being criticized by the trainers. Moondae looked completely calm and unmoving as bizarre subtitles appeared on the screen. To be honest, he looked like a crazy bastard…

“Hahahaha!” Gold 1 laughed. “Haha, seriously, Moondae-hyung, your face…!”

When the stage performance was broadcasted, Moondae looked at the person on the screen. That was definitely him, with the stage makeup and beautiful outfit, but it didn’t really feel like it. He looked completely different. Moondae’s bridge was followed by the trainer’s opinions and observations.

[“Wasn’t that originally Wongil’s part…?”] Mudie hummed.

[“Really?”]

[“Yeah. It was originally Wongil’s, but he said he couldn’t do it, so Moondae gave the chorus to him instead and rearranged it,”] she explained.

Seemed like Moondae’s decision was correct. He was being painted as some sort of saint.

[“Moondae is surprisingly soft-hearted,”] Mudie said during her interview. [“But he has a strong voice!”]

He needed to make sure to send red ginseng to her every year henceforth if he managed to live. Seriously, she might’ve single-handedly saved him from any backlash… Being ‘tactless but kind’ was much better than being ‘tactless and also a crazy bastard who pisses me off.’

The team slumped against the couch and the floor after the episode ended.

“Wah, my heart is beating so fast…”

“Seriously, I thought I was going to die of nervousness!”

Ahyeon shared his sentiments with Gold 1 and Gold 2. “M-Me too, I-I was really scared.”

Moondae was sitting casually, eating the chicken as the ending played. Both Choi Wongil and Lee Sejin were similar to how they acted in the team, where they were mostly sectioned off with a bit of a gloomy atmosphere. Choi Wongil was probably pissed that he didn’t get much screen time, but Lee Sejin had a face that he couldn’t really decipher. He seemed to be lost in thought, somehow.

‘…Ah, whatever,’ he thought to himself. ‘I should get going soon. I need to check the reactions when I get home.’

“These comments…!” Chaeyeon exclaimed as she gave Moondae a back hug as he was washing dishes. “Ahhh, they love you! I’d buy you a million stocks, Mommy!”

The comments on WeTube were flooding. Their performance of ‘To a New World’ was getting a lot of traction, as hundreds of thousands of views started to pile up.

- What?? Vampires??? Give me a second, I’ll drive the blood donor car

- Hi! I organized all of their names and timestamps! Seon Ahyeon (0:12), Lee Sejin B (0:21)… [View more]

- seriously!!! from the preparation process to the stage control OFBSOSNLSKSPQMS SERIOUSLY CRAZY!

The comments on any articles or forum posts were also going pretty crazy. Chaeyeon had her face glued to the screen, keeping one arm around Moondae and pressing her face into the small of his back, endlessly scrolling through the comments.

“Ah, Marshmallow reacted to your performance, too!”

Moondae turned off the running water and dried his hands on the towel nearby. He then hoisted Chaeyeon into his arms as if she weighed nothing. Chaeyeon barely reacted since it was a regular occurrence for her mom to pick her up. Moondae then carried her and sat on the couch, Chaeyeon now sitting on his lap. Moondae leaned over and rested his head on her shoulder as she played the video. He wasn’t very surprised to see that they got a little emotional. Marshmallow struggled for a little while before their breakout song.

Chaeyeon looked at him with tears in his eyes and sniffled, completely catching him off guard.

“Seriously, Mommy, you’re so cool…!” she cried. “You’re so pretty… You’re so cool and pretty, Mommy…”

“Hey, seriously, why are you crying so much…” Moondae mumbled as he wiped the tears from her eyes. “You’re like a leaky faucet. If we keep a tally record of how many days it’s been since you’ve cried, it’d never go beyond a week.”

“I can’t help it… Uwa…” she cried as she grabbed onto his fingers. “You’ll be a really cool idol… I know you will…!”

He didn’t know about ‘cool.’ Really, all he needed to be was an idol. Chaeyeon then pulled his arms to form an X around her, puppetting his limbs to hug her. “As idol training, let’s watch more idol videos!”

“Like VTIC?” he questioned. To be honest, it was still awkward coming home to his face on the corkboard and all of his merch, but he managed to control his expression whenever he was home. Chaeyeon loved Cheongryeo without even knowing it was her dad— he couldn’t do anything about it.

She hummed and turned her face toward the TV. “Mmm, maybe not VTIC this time. Something else!”

That was a shocker. Good for Moondae, though.

“…All right, let’s look then,” he said as he pulled up his phone, looking through WeTube to put on videos that’d satisfy Chaeyeon’s idol craving. Moondae knew it wasn’t really for him, it was for her.

‘All of these idols are pretty good looking,’ he thought to himself as he brushed his bangs away from his face. ‘…I should think of how to invest in my visuals without looking too suspicious.’

His fingers then stopped as he pinched his hair between his fingers before looking down at Chaeyeon. His hands then went to fiddle with her hair, braiding it loosely as Chaeyeon watched the TV screen with a smile. Silky smooth and dark strands fell through his fingertips before he collected them again, admiring it. Moondae had braided her hair until the very end and let it go, watching it slowly but surely unravel as he wrapped an arm around her. He went to grab his phone and started to do his own searching, away from Chaeyeon’s innocent eyes. He typed in ‘Gommeo,’ and a fair amount of results managed to pop up. The comments were malicious.

– seriously, gommeo is so god damn ugly. he can’t even dance to pop con like fuck. where is the editing??? lololol it’s so bad diediedie

– theres 0 main vocalist potential on idol inc so theyre just pushing gommeo forward while clenching their teeth. fuck seriously its way too much. the fabricated innocence… sheesh

– Gommeo’s only concept is to be a fan of Marshmallow~ Really pathetic LMAOO

– I want to see Gommeo's chest. He should expose it in the next stage. I wanna lick them.

- that normie ass gommeo lol??? he must have washed dishes while he was in the trainee camp. i bet my account that gommeo is gonna be exposed for being fake

Okay, wow, some of these were brutal. He was expecting it to be, but he somehow managed to be surprised. He angled his phone screen in a way that Chaeyeon wouldn’t be able to see it as he kept scrolling. A lot of them were cruel, but there were a handful that seemed to be dedicated to… talking about his body. They were using the search prevention term for a reason. Thirsty people would be thirsty, it just felt different when it was him as the object of affection.

Regardless, he has identified the problem. They didn’t like the character concept he had specifically because of his face. Well… he could just change that, and pretty inconspicuously, too. He put his phone down and kissed the top of Chaeyeon’s head with a smile on his face.

Kim Yeonjoo, also known as ‘FullMoon Baby’ online, was patiently waiting for the next episode of Idol Inc. She crossed her legs and checked her social media as the commercial finally ended as the preview rolled.

It started off normal at first. Bold text on the screen, fast clips with subtitles, and then suddenly—

She leaned forward with her eyes wide, cursing with her hands over her mouth, rocking back and forth in her chair. Fuck, she was such a fangirl. Holy shit, seriously…!

“B-B-Blond… I-It’s blond! He has blond hair!”

Moondae had transformed.