Chapter Text
Gaeul was a girl of absolute, unyielding logic. You had to be when you spent your days managing the backend analytics of a NewTube channel fueled entirely by blood, broken bones, and desperate high schoolers fighting in alleyways. She was the anchor of the Yoo Hobin Company. While Hobin screamed about ad revenue, Snapper cried over camera lenses, and Rumi worried about her makeup, Gaeul was the one looking at the cold, hard metadata.
But on a rainy Tuesday evening in the company office, logic abandoned her.
It started innocently enough. Gaeul was looking for trending hashtags to boost their channel’s algorithmic reach without someone being injured. She clicked a random link, which led to a blog post, which led to a forum, which led to a massive, beautifully formatted webcomic site.
The tag read: BL.
Boys’ Love.
“Huh” Gaeul muttered, her doe eyes reflecting the bright blue light of her dual monitors. “Is this like... a romance comic? Why are there so many sparkling flower petals around two guys buying convenience store milk?”
Curiosity didn’t just kill the cat; it dragged the cat into a dark room and forced it to binge-read eighty-seven chapters of a slow-burn Korean manhwa about a high school swimmer and his brooding rival. By 2:00 AM, Gaeul was gripping her mouse so tightly her knuckles were white. By 4:00 AM, she had crossed the bridge from fluffy, hand-holding BL into the deep, unholy waters of Yaoi. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated, and her brain cells were actively reconfiguring themselves.
“The psychological tension,” she whispered to the empty room, her voice hollow with awe. “The intense eye contact... the subtle possessiveness disguised as rivalry... the height difference...”
She rubbed her face, and stared at the ceiling. Her world had fundamentally shifted. For fifteen years, she had viewed human relationships through the boring lens of standard societal norms. Now? She saw the truth. Every glare was a hidden confession; every shove against a wall was a prelude to a dramatic monologue about pining.
The next morning, Gaeul dragged herself out of the girls’ room, looking like a zombie that had survived on nothing but angst and cliffhangers. She stumbled into the living room, a mug of coffee clutched in her hands, her brain still floating in a sea of fictional men.
And then, she saw them.
Taehoon Seong was lounging on the couch, his long legs thrown carelessly over the armrest. He was wearing an aggressively large black hoodie, looking like an irritable, venomous snake that had decided to take a nap. Hobin Yoo was sitting on the floor mat right in front of the couch, hunched over his laptop, furiously analyzing footage from their last encounter with a karate practitioner.
“Hey,” Taehoon muttered, his voice thick with morning gravel. He didn’t look up from his phone, but his bare foot casually reached out and kicked the back of Hobin’s head. Not hard. Just a repetitive, annoying tap.
“Stop it, Taehoon! I’m trying to work!” Hobin snapped, swatting the foot away without looking.
Taehoon didn’t stop. He lowered his foot and used his big toe to aggressively poke Hobin’s shoulder blade, digging it in until Hobin let out a frustrated screech and spun around.
“What do you want, you damn prodigy?!” Hobin yelled, his face turning a very faint, highly stressed shade of pink.
Taehoon finally tilted his head down, looking at Hobin through the fringe of his messy hair. A slow, incredibly smug smirk spread across his lips. “I’m hungry. Make me Buldak Ramen.”
“Am I your maid?! Go make it yourself! You have hands and legs—legs that you use to kick me constantly!”
Taehoon didn’t argue. Instead, he leaned down over the back of the couch, his upper body dropping forward until his face was barely inches away from Hobin’s. The sheer physical proximity made Hobin instinctively lean back, his eyes widening.
“If I make it, I’m putting raw eggs in yours,” Taehoon threatened, his voice dropping into that quiet, dangerous register he used when he was being completely serious. “And you hate raw eggs. So go cook, scrawny.”
Hobin glared at him, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. He looked like he wanted to scream, but instead, he just let out a defeated groan, slammed his laptop shut, and stomped toward the kitchen, muttering profanities under his breath about him not being scrawny, and about Taekwondo bastards and their high metabolisms.
Taehoon watched him go, his smirk softening into something incredibly subtle, almost... fond. He leaned back against the couch cushions, completely satisfied.
In the corner of the room, Gaeul froze. Her coffee mug stopped halfway to her mouth.
Her mind, currently overclocked on eighty-seven chapters of rival-to-lovers tropes, went into absolute overdrive.
The height difference, her brain screamed. The domestic banter! The physical boundaries that don’t exist! The way Taehoon only annoys Hobin to get his undivided attention! The way Hobin complains but ultimately does exactly what Taehoon wants!
“Oh my god,” Gaeul whispered, a drop of cold sweat rolling down her cheek. “They aren’t just close. They are... they’re living a slow-burn webtoon.”
She looked at Taehoon. She looked at the kitchen where Hobin was loudly banging pots and pans.
“They’re real,” she breathed, her eyes sparkling with an unholy light. “TaeHobin is real.”