POV — Taejun
I picked myself up from the floor.
My hands were shaking.
My whole body was soaked in sweat — shirt clinging to my back, hair damp against my forehead — and the heat that had knocked me down was still there, still building, still refusing to listen to anything my brain was trying to tell it.
I stood in the middle of my room and tried to breathe.
It didn't help.
I looked at the coffee cup on my desk.
Just looked at it.
And then it hit me.
The timing. The feeling. The way it had started almost immediately after I finished that cup — the warmth, the heat, the thing that had been building and building from the moment I swallowed the last drop.
I picked the cup up with a hand that was not steady.
Smelled it.
Underneath the coffee — underneath the strong familiar smell of it — something else. Something faint and chemical and completely foreign.
I set the cup down.
Aphrodisiac.
I said it out loud. To the empty room. To nobody.
"Someone put Aphrodisiac in my coffee."
The words landed and the anger came immediately — sharp and hot and real — but the anger was no match for the other thing that was still running through my entire body like electricity with nowhere to go.
Who.
Why.
The questions burned but they were going to have to wait because right now I could not think about who or why because the Aphrodisiac was not finished with me and I could feel myself losing the fight second by second.
"Oh God," I said.
"I can't hold this."
I grabbed my cap. My mask. My jacket.
And went straight to the door.
POV — Sungjae
Jaemin had decided that the solution to every problem in life was food.
I had known this for nine years and it still somehow managed to surprise me — the speed with which he could locate snacks in any environment, the dedication with which he pursued them.
He was standing in the kitchen eating leftover chicken straight from the container when Taejun appeared in the doorway.
Cap. Mask. Jacket. The full disguise. At this hour. In our own residence.
I lowered my drink slowly.
Jaemin looked up with a piece of chicken halfway to his mouth. "Bro I am so hungry — come eat something—"
Taejun walked straight past him.
"Tae—" Jaemin said.
Taejun pushed past him — one hand briefly on Jaemin's shoulder, moving him gently but firmly out of the way — and went straight to the front door without slowing down.
It opened.
It closed.
Jaemin stood in the kitchen with his chicken and looked at the closed door.
Then he looked at me.
"What was that," he said.
I looked at the door.
Then at Jaemin.
"I don't know," I said. "But something is wrong."
POV — Taejun
The night air hit me the moment I stepped outside.
It didn't help.
I walked fast — head down, cap pulled low, mask covering everything below my eyes — moving through the streets until I stopped outside Hotel Mirae.
Our hotel. Our building. The one place in this city where I could walk through the front door without anyone asking questions.
I pulled my cap lower.
Walked through the lobby.
Checked in under a different name and rode up to the twenty second floor alone.
I got into the room.
Closed the door.
The heat was worse.
I saw the bottle of water on the bedside table.
I grabbed it immediately — twisted the cap off — and drank fast and desperately like cold water could put out whatever was burning inside me.
It made it worse.
So much worse.
The wave hit harder than anything before it and my hand jerked and the bottle flew and hit the glass on the table and they both went down together — water and broken glass exploding across the floor in every direction.
I stood in the middle of it and stared.
Then I rushed to the bathroom.
Turned the cold tap on full.
Gripped the edges of the sink with both hands and breathed — in and out, slow and deliberate — and waited.
A few minutes passed.
The feeling pulled back slightly. Just slightly. Just enough for me to think in a straight line for thirty seconds.
I turned the tap off.
Came back out.
Water everywhere. Broken glass scattered across the entire floor catching the light in pieces.
I stared at the mess.
Then I crouched down slowly and started picking up the broken pieces of glass one by one — carefully, methodically, the way you do something when your hands need something to do and your brain is barely holding on.
I picked up one piece.
Then another.
Then—
"AHH."
The glass edge caught my palm — sharp and immediate — and I pulled my hand back and looked at the cut and the small line of red appearing across it and almost laughed.
Of course.
Of course.
I stood up.
Reached for the hotel telephone with my uninjured hand.
"I need a cleaner," I said quietly. "Room 2204. As soon as possible. There is broken glass on the floor."
I set the phone down.
Sat on the edge of the bed.
Pressed the cut on my palm against my jacket and waited.
The knock came sooner than I expected.
"Come in," I said.
The door opened.
And I forgot everything I had been thinking about for the past ten seconds completely.
She was — I don't know how to explain what happened in the moment she walked through that door except to say that every single thing in my body that had been struggling and fighting and barely holding on for the past hour went from difficult to impossible in approximately three seconds flat.
Why, I thought desperately. Why would a cleaner be this thick and this extremely beautiful.
She had a trolley. Cleaning supplies. A uniform. She was looking at the floor — at the water and the broken glass — with the calm professional expression of someone who had seen worse and was already working out how to fix it.
Of all the people they could have sent.
Of all the people.
The Aphrodisiac that had been losing its grip on me for thirty seconds found it again immediately and tightened it considerably.
The person who drugged me, something in my head said before I could stop it — actually did the right thing—
I stopped that thought immediately.
Oh God.
What am I saying.
What is wrong with me.
She looked up.
"Hello sir." Her voice was calm. Polite. Completely unbothered by the state of the room or the man sitting on the edge of the bed looking at her like she had walked in from another world entirely. "Can you please step aside so I can clean?"
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
And the last thread I had been holding onto snapped completely.
I was on my feet before I decided to stand up.
Moving toward her before I had given myself permission to move.
And then—