The grand staircase of the Orchid Mansion felt like a runway to a gallows. Every step I took was captured by a dozen different angles, the silent whir of the gimbal-mounted cameras following the sway of my crimson silk dress.
Behind me, the air was thick with a static electricity so potent I could practically feel the hair on my arms standing up. I didn't need to look back to know that Jisoo and Leon were following. One was a shadow, the other was a blizzard, and I was caught in the eye of the storm.
"Ten minutes, Merlin," Minho's voice echoed from the lounge below, light hearted but edged with a warning. "The doors lock at the buzzer. Choose a partner or sleep in the garden."
I reached the second-floor landing. The hallway was a gallery of closed doors, each marked with a gold-plated number. Room 1 through Room 5.
I heard the heavy, rhythmic tread of boots behind me. Jisoo. He didn't rush; he didn't have to. He moved with the absolute certainty of a man who already owned the outcome.
"Room 4," Leon's voice rasped from my other side. He had moved up beside me, his white suit stark against the mahogany walls. "The balcony, Merlin. You need the air. This house... it's designed to suffocate you."
I stopped in front of the door to Room 4. My hand hovered over the brass handle. I could feel Leon's intense, frozen gaze on my profile, and Jisoo's heat radiating from just a few inches behind my shoulder.
"He's right about one thing," Jisoo said, his voice a low, vibrating growl near my ear. "This house is designed to suffocate. But a balcony won't save you, Merlin. You don't need air. You need an ally who knows how to breathe underwater."
I turned to look at them both. Up close, without the studio lights, they were even more daunting. Leon was the perfection of a statue—beautiful, cold, and haunting. Jisoo was the perfection of a storm—dark, volatile, and magnetic.
"I told you," I whispered, my ENTP brain finally clicking into place, calculating the optics for the millions watching at home. "I'm choosing the person who keeps things interesting."
I turned the handle to Room 4.
Leon stepped forward, his hand reaching out to claim the doorframe, but Jisoo was faster. With a move so fluid it was almost predatory, Jisoo slipped his hand around my waist and guided me through the threshold.
Click.
The electronic lock on the door flashed from blue to a violent, pulsing Red.
Room 4: Occupied.
Leon froze in the hallway, his hand inches from the wood. For a split second, the "Ice Prince" mask shattered. His eyes widened, a flash of genuine, jagged hurt—or was it rage?—crossing his features before he pulled back into the shadows.
The door shut with a heavy, pressurized thud.
The room was a masterpiece of forced intimacy. Two oversized beds sat just three feet apart, draped in charcoal-grey linens. A floor-to-ceiling glass door led to the balcony Leon had mentioned, but inside, the air-conditioning was humming a low, mechanical tune.
I pulled away from Jisoo's touch the moment the lock engaged. The silence was deafening.
"You play a dangerous game, Merlin," Jisoo said, tossing his suit jacket onto the nearest bed. He began unbuttoning his cuffs, his movements slow and deliberate.
"I'm not playing a game, Jisoo," I replied, walking toward the balcony to put distance between us. "I'm surviving. You said it yourself—you're the only one who knows I'm faking. That makes you the safest roommate. I don't have to pretend around you."
Jisoo let out a short, dark laugh. He stepped closer, the soft glow of the garden lights through the glass illuminating the sharp angles of his face. "Safe? You think because I know your secret, I'm safe? That's your first mistake."
He leaned against the glass door, blocking my view of the gardens. "I didn't pick you because I wanted to help you hide, Merlin. I picked you because I want to see what happens when you finally stop acting."
"And if I never stop?" I challenged, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
"Then I'll just have to make the script too difficult for you to follow."
He leaned in closer, his shadow falling over me. For a moment, I thought he might actually lean down—to bridge that final, inch-wide gap—but the sharp beep of the mansion's intercom system cut through the tension.
"Contestants, please prepare for bed," the Host's voice boomed. "The first mission begins at dawn. Remember: the cameras are equipped with infrared. There is no darkness in the Orchid Mansion."
The lights in the room dimmed automatically, leaving us in a wash of deep, cinematic blue.
Across the shared wall, in Room 5, the silence was even sharper.
Leon sat on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands. He didn't look at Aria, who was quietly unpacking her silk vanity case.
"She chose him, Leon," Aria said softly, her voice devoid of its usual stage-perfection. "You moved too slow. In this industry, if you don't grab what you want, someone else will claim it as their own."
Leon didn't look up. His gaze was fixed on the wall—the thin, expensive barrier between him and the girl in the red dress. He could hear the faint, muffled sound of Merlin's laughter. It was a bright, genuine sound that felt like a needle under his skin.
"She hasn't chosen anything yet," Leon whispered, his voice cold enough to frost the glass. "The experiment is thirty days long, Aria. And I've never been good at losing."
Back in Room 4, I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. The charcoal sheets felt like ice against my skin. Just three feet away, I could hear the steady, calm breathing of the man who had claimed me as his partner.
Jisoo wasn't sleeping. I knew it. He was a predator in the dark, waiting for the first crack in my armor.
I turned onto my side, looking toward the balcony. Somewhere out there, the world was watching us. They were tweeting, debating, and picking sides. They saw a romance.
I saw a war.
And as I finally drifted into a fitful sleep, my last thought wasn't about the mission or the cameras. It was about the way Jisoo's hand had felt on my waist—firm, possessive, and terrifyingly real.