Dirty Switch

…What? What the hell is this bastard even saying right now?
─ Hello? Joo Taehyun?

Taehyun had frozen in disbelief at the utter nonsense, but came to his senses a beat later and reached out for the phone.
Hyung, it’s not like that.
The denial flew out before an apology could even form. His desperation overrode any sense of etiquette.

Frantically mouthing soundless explanations, Taehyun wiped the saliva still faintly clinging to the corner of his lips.
Where should he even start? Too many lines were firing in his brain at once, none of them coherent.
First, hang up. Then apologize to Seo Baekhan. Sure, Baekhan might not care—he’d even once hoped Seungpil and Taehyun would end up together—but Taehyun himself didn’t want that kind of misunderstanding. Especially not the kind where someone thought he was casually airing Baekhan’s personal details behind his back.

This had nothing to do with consent. It was a misunderstanding. He owed Seungpil a favor because of the rumor Kim Seungjun had spread. Helping with his transfer essay was just paying that debt. All this crap about coming over or knowing Baekhan’s rut schedule was entirely Seungpil’s delusion. Nothing had been agreed upon. And Taehyun had never—not once—talked about Baekhan’s rut with him.
─ What, you can’t hear me or something? Hello? Hey, babe?
While Taehyun scrambled to organize all this into a coherent defense, Seungpil, oblivious to the tension, kept rambling on.

“Yeah, babe. It’s me.”
To that, Baekhan coolly echoed Seungpil’s sleazy tone, mimicking him word for word.
Startled by the unfamiliar voice, Seungpil made a series of fumbling noises, like he was pulling the phone away and then bringing it back.

─ Wh–wha?! B–Baekhan-hyung? Is that you?
Finally catching up to the situation, Seungpil stammered Baekhan’s name like an idiot, over and over.
“Yeah. Sorry, this isn’t Taehyun. So, my rut, huh… probably the week after next? Were you planning to come over then?”

─ N–No, hyung. I mean, sir. It’s just… Taehyun said he doesn’t like having anyone around when he’s in rut, so I wouldn’t want to disturb your rest…
“Well, then maybe don’t do anything that’d be a disturbance to begin with. But I guess you had plans to do something at someone else’s house, huh? Babe.”
─ Huh? Wh–what do you mean, sir…? I’m sorry. I must’ve misunderstood. My Korean’s not great these days… you know, since I’ve been studying abroad so long, haha… haha…

“You’re Korean. What’s this bullshit about not speaking Korean well?”
He didn’t have to see it to picture it—Seungpil probably jolting up from the couch like a kicked dog, pale as a ghost.
And frankly, Taehyun felt the same.
“But hey, since you called from so far away, what a shame. ‘Cause me and your beloved Taehyun still have some unfinished business here. Mind if I call you back later?”

As if waiting for that moment, the Ferris wheel reached its peak. And suddenly, the surrounding area lit up, all at once.
A tiny heart, fogged onto the glass by some adult male’s breath, emerged—followed by smeared handprints and random doodles like hidden codes gradually revealing themselves.
Taehyun could picture it clearly: couples leaning in to get a better view, leaving behind these playful traces.

But he couldn’t appreciate any of it. He hadn’t eaten anything, but he felt sick to his stomach.
─ O–Oh! Of course! Please, take your time. I’m sorry, sir!
As Seungpil’s loud voice finally faded, an unbearable silence settled in the cabin.

“Taehyun.”
Just as the wheel began its slow descent, Baekhan gripped Taehyun’s chin firmly. The phone was still in his other hand.
“Look, hyung. About Seungpil—he said all that about coming over without asking me, and—ah!”

Now. This was the moment. Time to apologize. To explain.
If he didn’t speak now, Baekhan might just shut down and never hear him out.
But despite all the mental prep he’d done, Baekhan gave him no opening to speak.

His pheromones, thick and distinct, wound around Taehyun’s ankles like fog. Taehyun had longed for this—he’d wanted nothing more than to breathe it in while waiting in the car. Just moments ago, he’d been drinking it in like it was honey.
So why did it feel like acid now?
Taehyun clenched his eyes shut, enduring the overwhelming force of Baekhan’s pheromones, his tongue, his saliva.

Could this even be called a kiss? They weren’t having sex, but it was more brutal than anything they’d done in bed. Not arousing—just painful. Like his heart was being wrung out.
“Hyung, please… just a sec—”
“It’s fine, Taehyun. I’m not interested in the people around you.”

He got that Baekhan had every right to be upset. But still, couldn’t he just listen for a second…?
Even after loving Baekhan for so long, Taehyun still struggled to articulate his feelings around him. Unless it was in an official, public setting, demanding anything from Baekhan felt impossible.
Because if he never asked, then he could never be rejected—just like before.

So again, Taehyun could only close his eyes and endure it. Maybe, once Baekhan calmed down, he’d get a chance to explain. He may be pissed, but he’s still trying not to hurt me…
“…But hey, are you feeling really unwell today?”
Baekhan murmured it against his lips—a loaded question, and Taehyun knew it.

“I’ll say it again. I don’t care if you hang out with Seungpil or anyone else.”
“…”
“But you and I still have something to do. Gotta get your body back to normal—so we can both get through our next rut with someone else, right?”

Baekhan bit down lightly on Taehyun’s lower lip, pressing against the soft tissue with an almost slurred whisper.
“What are you doing? If you understand me, open up properly.”
***

“What the hell are they doing on a Ferris wheel in this weather.”
Checking the weather in Pyongyang on her app, Joo Yoonwoo clicked her tongue and rose from her seat. As a direct family member of the group’s CEO, she technically had no clock-in or clock-out obligations—but still, today was Friday. And everyone knew: when the boss leaves first, the rest of the staff can finally breathe and go home.
“You can’t do this, sir!”

Suddenly, a commotion erupted from the CEO’s office. Yoonwoo, who had been gathering some files to finish at home, twisted her face like she’d just stepped in dog shit.
…This is a familiar setup.
“Leaving already? In a recession like this, even if there’s no work to do, you should stay and keep your post!”

Sure enough. The door slammed open, and a large man with a thick neck and belly like an overinflated balloon stormed in, glaring daggers at her. Behind the lumbering figure, a group of secretaries followed with looks of quiet panic. Yoonwoo gave them a small wave—don’t worry, you did nothing wrong. The fault lies in me… for being related to this parasite.
“This is why men need to handle the big jobs. Women just don’t have the stamina.”
Oh, shut the hell up. Having dealt with this more than once, Yoonwoo ignored him and went back to her work.

Kang Bunam, a maternal relative from Chairman Joo Ilwook’s side, was exactly the kind of outdated relic his name suggested—soaked in misogyny and male superiority like a piece of rotten tofu. He never dared speak up around the male siblings, but anytime something annoyed him, he’d come running straight to her or their mother to throw a tantrum.
When she was younger, Yoonwoo used to argue back, throwing logic and facts at him. But you can’t reason with a lunatic. It didn’t take her long to learn the only answer was to ignore the bastard.
“We all share the same glorious ancestors, so why is it only your branch reaping the benefits?”

Relatives like Kang Bunam weren’t family—they were leeches. She couldn’t even recall how the other ones were related. Bunam was, what, her dad’s sixth cousin? Basically a stranger.
“I carry the same last name as the great DH Group. Don’t you think I should at least maintain some dignity?”
The real problem was, just because they were family, her kind-hearted grandfather had set him up with a small company. Despite never contributing a single thing to the DH Group’s growth, these freeloaders’ greed only grew with time.

Thanks to their precious, late-born youngest son, the DH Group’s direct family line was unusually close-knit for a chaebol. Still, Yoonwoo thought that part of the reason was because they shared a common enemy—starting with Kang Bunam.
The "glorious ancestors" had given her loving parents, good-looking older brothers, and a baby brother who was smart, sweet, charming, and somehow managed to hog all the good traits for himself. Everyone outside their immediate family, though? Complete genetic failures.
“You brat! You see your elder and don’t even bow? Where are your manners, Joo Yoonwoo?!”

“…”
“Ha! What family would ever take a girl like you! Who’s going to marry someone like that?!”
“Secretary Choi, I think we need to retrain the security team. Make it… rigorous.”

“Yes, ma’am. My apologies, Chairwoman.”
Let’s be {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} clear: the staff weren’t at fault. This was theater—directed at the leech in the room.
Even if the security or secretaries saw this happening again, there wasn’t much they could do. People like Kang Bunam were a pain in the ass to deal with. If you so much as brushed against him, he’d cry assault, threaten lawsuits, maybe even call a press conference. No one wanted that mess.

“Must be the heat—my throat’s dry. Bring me something cold. Not from that dark, ugly dude! Isn’t there a cute girl working here?”
And even now, Kang Bunam just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Yoonwoo shook her head slightly, giving the secretaries a silent order: Ignore this fucker. Get him out of here.
As always, she was glad she’d turned on the voice recorder app on her phone. If that bastard ever grabbed a mic and tried to claim the DH family condoned his crap, she had a decades-long archive of his bullshit ready to unleash.

“Ahem. Anyway, I’m a busy man, so I’ll keep it short. That Joo Taehyun—he needs to take a drug test. In front of us. Right now.”
But when that bloated leech dared to drag their precious youngest brother into it, even Yoonwoo—who’d managed to hold back until now—snapped.
“If it turns out that little brat really did take that Dirty Switch or whatever the hell it is, then the stock shares need to be redistributed!”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me—”
“Hey! I just came from talking to the eldest son of Pungjin Industries. I know the whole story. Don’t try to weasel out of it. How can we entrust the future of DH Group to some defective mess like that?!”