POV: Go I-ram

The laundry room had become neutral ground.

It wasn’t warm or cold. It just was. Like the background hum of a life spent surviving. A space too mundane to carry expectations.

I-ram liked it that way. Until today.

Do-yun was already there when he arrived. He looked like he always did: hair still a little damp from a purposeful shower, sleeves rolled to his forearms, folding shirts with the kind of focus reserved for surgeons or saints.

“Morning,” he said without looking up.

“Still legally too early for human interaction” I-ram replied.

Do-yun smiled as he gently folded a hoodie. “Bori stole one of my socks this morning.”

I-ram didn’t look up. “Was it the left one?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“She has a preference. Left-footed thief.”

“I thought she was chewing on it out of spite, but then she carried it to her food bowl like it was a trophy.”

“She’s warning you. Sleep with one eye open.”

Do-yun laughed. “I think she likes you more than she likes me.”

“She likes power. I just don’t give her orders.”

Do-yun chuckled and returned to his folding.

I-ram moved to the second washer and dumped in his clothes, letting the rhythm of the process ground him. Pour detergent. Add softener. Close lid. Set timer.

Normal. Unremarkable. Safe.

He reached for the soap bottle again, but froze halfway through the motion.

There it was. It wasn’t overpowering. It didn’t come with fanfare. It just… appeared, like a single spark on dry leaves.

A scent.

Not the familiar rosemary-tinged calm Do-yun usually carried. No, this was different. Thicker. Warmer. Unmistakably alpha.

His chest tightened.

It wasn’t just that he noticed it. It was that his body reacted to it. Fast. Fierce. Like muscle memory stored in a drawer he thought he’d locked years ago.

His throat felt tight. His palms dampened. And for a brief, horrifying second, he felt warmth curl low in his stomach. Too visceral, too sudden.

He stepped back.

Do-yun looked up. “You okay?”

I-ram blinked. “Fine.”

He wasn’t.

His voice cracked on the second syllable and his hands were clenched too tightly around the detergent bottle. He set it down carefully, deliberately.

Do-yun’s eyes narrowed just slightly. Not suspicious, not accusing. He looked… concerned.

“You sure?”

“I need to...” I-ram’s sentence broke off halfway. He grabbed his laundry basket and turned on his heel. “I’ll come back. later”

He was out the door before Do-yun could say another word.

He barely remembered the walk back up.

The stairs blurred into each other. His breathing felt like it belonged to someone else. The second he was inside 501, he locked the door behind him, dropped the basket, and stumbled toward the sink.

Cold water. That’s what people did in situations like this.

Splash. Breathe. Splash. Don’t scream.

He gripped the edge of the counter with wet hands and stared into the sink like it could offer him answers.

“It’s nothing,” he muttered. “Just a scent. A chemical reaction. Bodies lie all the time.”

He dried his face and leaned back against the counter.

His apartment smelled like rosemary again. And soil... But there were faint, grounding traces of him.

He turned sharply away, only to find Mister Needle judging him from the windowsill.

“What?” he snapped. “Like you’ve never had a pheromonal episode.”

The cactus did not respond. Just sat there, spiky and superior.

I-ram closed his eyes. It wasn’t just the scent. It was what it did to him. How it felt.

There had been a moment—half a heartbeat—where he felt safe in it.

And that terrified him more than the heat pooling in his chest.

He sat at his desk, opened a new document, and tried to work.

Words came in fragments:

The body remembers what the heart tries to forget.

Delete.

You can’t control instincts. You can only hope they don’t turn on you.

Delete.

What do you do when your instincts wake up before your heart does?

He stared at that last one for a long time.

His fingers hovered over the delete key. Then moved. Not to erase it, but to hit save.

He leaned back in the chair, exhaling through his nose. Glanced toward the windowsill again.

He sighed. Mister Needle and the rosemary stood side by side, looking smug and untouched. Quiet witnesses to his spiral. Impossible to ignore.

He stared at them for a long moment, then muttered:

“Keep growing. One of us has to.”

That night, he lingered by the door longer than usual.

He heard soft footsteps in the hallway. The distant sound of something glass clinking. Do-yun was still awake. Probably going up to the rooftop. Probably expecting to see him...

No.
He didn’t owe the garden anything tonight.

I-ram stepped back, turned off the entry light, and let the silence return.

He sat by the window later, notebook in hand, pen uncapped but still. The scent in the apartment had faded—but not enough.

Something inside him itched. Not with panic but with possibility.

And that, somehow, was worse.

End of Episode Seven