L*st and Death

The Apartment You Can’t Leave Without Eating Chocolate

(Valentine’s Day IF Side Story)

※ This is a special Valentine’s Day side story and does not take place within the main canon. Please keep this in mind while reading.

[Under Maintenance]

Dragging my exhausted body home after work, what greeted me was a broken elevator.

The landlord, apparently fed up with the constant repairs, had completely given up.

As a result, the space in front of the elevator was now a mountain of trash—an offering of wrath from the furious residents.

“They’re raising the rent in a place like this? They’ve lost their damn mind.”

Since the latter half of last year, the landlord had dramatically raised the rent for the whole apartment building.

No one in their right mind would pay luxury condo rates to live in a dilapidated building where the elevator broke down every other week.

And yet, for reasons unclear, a few tenants—myself included—had our rent frozen.

I was one of the few (maybe the only) people to receive this strange “privilege.”

And because I was afraid they’d change their mind and hike the rent for unit 913 too, I never dared to ask why.

With things the way they were, most of the other residents had moved out.

The number of vacant units kept growing.

Even the creepy pervert next door—who’d been fused with this roach-infested building—had packed up and left.

Once a place full of noisy late-night domestic sounds, the apartment had grown tomb-silent.

It was to the point where I seriously worried I might end up the only person left in this cursed building—my life abandoned like a ghost unit.

That was true as of last night.

But this morning, on my way out to work, I noticed something odd in the hallway.

The doors to the units across from and beside me were wide open, and the corridor was cluttered with unpacked moving boxes.

Looks like some poor suckers—three households, no less—were moving in.

The wicked landlord was finally making bank again.

I’d clicked my tongue and left that morning, and now, stepping into the 9th-floor hallway after work, I ran straight into one of the poor suckers.

He was just coming out of the unit where the pervert used to live.

As soon as he spotted me, he froze.

“Bebe. Long time no see.”

The dingy, shadowy hallway suddenly lit up like a red carpet under flashbulbs.

Lewis’s smile brightened the corridor like sunlight, and seeing him again made my chest ache with warmth.

“Why are you here?”

“I moved in. Next door.”

Grinning, Lewis held something out to me: a glittering gold box and a bouquet of soft pink peonies.

“Here. Take it.”

“What is this?”

“A housewarming-slash-Valentine’s Day gift. Chocolate. Let’s eat it together.”

“Uh, what?”

A Valentine’s gift as a housewarming present?

The seduction was obvious, and yet... without thinking, I let this younger man trick me into opening the door—and letting him inside.

But someone was already in the living room.

At first I thought it was a burglar, but the silhouette was all too familiar.

Isaac, in his black coat, was standing square in the middle of the room, examining a photo on the wall.

“What are you doing?”

My heart pounded in panic, cold sweat gathering on my skin.

It hit me, hard, just how meaningless the concept of personal space was to Isaac.

“How did you even get in?”

“The lock was... rather flimsy.”

Isaac casually glanced over at me and Lewis behind me.

He took off his coat and draped it over the back of the sofa, then picked something up from the mini table.

“Take it.”

He handed me a gift: a blue box the color of his eyes, and a single cornflower tinted with dusky violet.

“Chocolate, for moving in next door.”

With rough but deliberate fingers, Isaac gently tucked the cornflower into my hair, near the curve of my ear.

He moved like a long-time lover.

“But do you know who lived next door before I moved in?”

“Um... some old man lived there for a long time.”

“There’s a mummified corpse of a man sealed inside the concrete wall. Must’ve been his doing.”

Isaac said it like a joke.

But there was nothing funny about it.

I was too shocked to speak.

The fact that the old man next door had apparently been rooming with a corpse was disturbing enough—

But even more disturbing was the question of why Isaac had smashed through someone else’s concrete wall to find it.

I was debating whether I should call the police when—

knock knock knock

Someone rapped on the front door.

And by this point, I already had a pretty good guess who it was.

When I opened the door, for a second, I genuinely thought I’d stepped into another world.

Standing there was Baekgyeong.

But not the Baekgyeong I knew.

His hair was neatly slicked back.

He wore a tailored suit that clung to his body.

He looked like a shameless, handsome college boyfriend invited to some high school girl’s prom.

And the sea of red roses that filled the hallway?

The density of the scent alone was enough to intoxicate.

“Here. This is—”

“Let me guess. Your housewarming-slash-Valentine’s Day chocolate too?”

“...‘too’?”

I snatched the box from his hands and leaned out into the hallway.

In the distance, I saw a group of florists packing up their gear and heading out after finishing their bouquet setup.

“This is overkill. How am I supposed to clean all that up?”

“What did you say? Overkill?”

“I live on the 9th floor without an elevator. Even throwing out trash is a workout.”

Grumbling at the sheer inconvenience, I could see Baekgyeong’s expression twitch.

So much for romantic buildup. He looked like he was swallowing his annoyance.

And then his eyes landed elsewhere—on Lewis and Isaac inside.

“Son of a bitch. Who the fuck are they?”

He shoved past me into the apartment, scowling at the two men already occupying the living room.

“Baekgyeong! Pheromones!”

Maybe it was the sudden challenge, but Lewis didn’t back down either.

As Baekgyeong’s pheromones flared out, Lewis responded in kind.

The air in the room grew thick—oppressive, sticky, charged with alpha tension.

I panicked and fled to the bedroom, trying to shut the door behind me—

But someone grabbed it and pulled it wide open from the other side.

“Not even going to open your gifts?”

Isaac sat down casually at the edge of my bed without asking for permission.

Even with the door open just a crack, the pheromones seeped in.

The simple fact of having an empty hole—so normal, so benign—suddenly felt unbearably vulnerable.

That’s the problem with pheromones.

Once you start noticing, you start wanting.

“Bebe?”

Lewis entered the bedroom, eyes alert.

Baekgyeong followed soon after, looking unhinged.

“Time to open your presents?”

“Go on, Siron. Open them.”

Isaac’s low voice scraped at my nerves.

In the end, like an animal already trapped, I reached for the topmost red box.

“...Baekgyeong, what the fuck.”

“Look closely. That’s hand-crafted chocolate by last year’s World Chocolate Masters grand prize winner.”

Sitting inside was a bloated king cobra, its neck puffed, looking ready to strike.

If he hadn’t said it was chocolate, I’d have assumed he’d hacked off his own erection and dropped it in the box.

The balls, the shaft, the veins, the head—it was all disturbingly realistic.

The surface even had a shine to it, like it had just been slathered in lube.

“...Should I just kill you right now for showing this to Bebe?”

“Sex is vulgar by nature. But this? This is just obscene.”

Isaac and Lewis both gave him withering looks, but Baekgyeong didn’t so much as flinch.

“Bite into it and there’s a creamy milk chocolate center. If you don’t like sweet, you can try melting it with something saltier.”

Unbothered by the disgust in our eyes, Baekgyeong slowly dragged his hand down his pants, stroking the real cobra beneath.

“Get out.”

I dropped the chocolate to the floor. I didn’t even want to touch it.

Still, out of politeness, I picked up the second gift box.

“I made that one myself. Unlike someone, I didn’t outsource it.”

Thankfully, this one was... normal.

Inside a black plastic tray sat several white chocolate balls, each about the size of a ping pong ball, one in each cavity.

They looked smooth and glossy, like they’d been properly molded in silicone trays.

“Bebe, let’s melt them together.”

Lewis looked at me with a mixture of tension and hope.

His gaze felt heavier than it used to. More desperate.

Was it just my imagination?

He smiled.

I couldn’t stand looking at his face, so I stared instead at the ivory-colored chocolate in my hands.

“They’re pretty dense. Might take a while to melt. I’m the impatient type—kind of prefer biting into it.”

I laughed and picked up the small white piping bag nestled next to the tray.

“What’s this?”

“White chocolate mousse. For drizzling.”

“Drizzling mousse on chocolate? God, that’s going to be insanely sweet.”

Still, compared to a cock-shaped chocolate replica, drowning in sugar didn’t sound half bad.

“It’s fine. I reduced the sugar content.

And besides... you won’t exactly be thinking about the taste.”

Not thinking about the taste?

That was a weird thing to say.

“What do you mean, I won’t—”

“Let’s check the final gift, shall we?”

Before I could finish, Isaac cut in, smoothly redirecting the conversation.

“My turn. Go ahead—open it.”

Inside his box were all kinds of chocolate-based items.

Chocolate fudge brownies, chocolate donuts, chocolate bars, chocolate cookies, crackers—all individually wrapped in clear plastic, stacked neatly.

I already knew what it was.

“Combat rations.”

“Sharp as ever.”

He knew how much I hated military food, and he still...

Isaac looked at me with eyes full of nostalgic cruelty.

The kind of memory we shared, but only one of us cherished.

“These are military rations from the US, France, Germany, and Russia.

Each pack contains about 1,500 kcal. Not to your taste, I’m sure... but it’s Valentine’s Day.”

Jesus. Of course the military nerd would gift a dessert MRE set.

It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t not romantic.

It was just... survival food. The kind of thing you only ate in an emergency.

I gave him a stiff smile.

“A cookie with 1,500 calories? One of those is enough for a whole day.”

He noticed the sarcasm behind my polite grin and snorted.

“You’ll need it. You’re going to burn a lot of calories soon.”

I laughed it off and turned my gaze elsewhere.

Everyone was being so... cryptic.

No, that wasn’t true. I knew exactly what they meant.

I could feel it, seeping through my skin.

The pheromones lingering in the air.

The barely disguised innuendo in their voices.

My own thundering heartbeat, trying not to get swept up in it.

I tried to ignore all of it.

Pretending not to notice felt like the only way to survive this.

But then, something incredibly strange happened...

[Welcome to the apartment you can never leave unless you eat chocolate.]

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, we offer three special missions to you, whose hearts are full of wicked desires for one another.

Consume the chocolates in order. Once all effects are experienced harmoniously with all participants, you may escape the apartment step by step.

※ First Mission! Choose one of the following options:

1. Consume Lewis’s chocolate gift together via kiss

Note: It doesn’t necessarily have to be via kissing. The executor may use any of their other orifices instead.

2. Consume Baekgyeong’s chocolate gift

Note: Oral ingestion is not mandatory. The chocolate may be melted warmly inside any of the executor’s other orifices.

3. Consume Isaac’s chocolate gift

Note: Oral ingestion by the executor is mandatory.

・Reward for success: Escape from Unit 913

・Failure within time limit will result in permanent quarantine inside Unit 913.

・Time remaining: 02:58:11

The narrow bedroom fell into a tense silence.

“...Am I hallucinating right now?”

I looked around at the faces in the room, bewildered.

Everyone was staring blankly up at the popup floating in midair.

Even Isaac—who’d seen just about every freakish thing in existence—looked like this was a first.

Meanwhile, the countdown continued, ticking down in real time.

“This building really is cursed. Damn it.”

I let out a disbelieving laugh and walked out of the bedroom, crossing the narrow living room toward the front door.

Seeing the door slightly ajar, I let out a breath of relief.

Baekgyeong must’ve left it half open when he barged in earlier—about a 5cm gap.

“Knew it. We probably just ate something bad. Hallucinations, all of us.”

Chuckling, I reached to push the door open.

But it didn’t budge.

I pushed harder. Still no movement.

I slammed my palm against it. Then my shoulder.

Nothing. The door was stuck—open only 5cm and no more.

Well, with three grown men working together, we could force it open somehow.

I turned back into the bedroom to ask for help—only to freeze.

Something was off.

All three of them... looked like they knew something I didn’t.

“What? What is it?”

“I was thinking,” Lewis said grimly.

My heart sank at his expression.

I pressed him, already dreading the answer.

“Thinking about what?”

“The mission’s name is ‘The Apartment You Can’t Leave Unless You Eat Chocolate.’ Isn’t that suspicious?”

Isaac followed up calmly.

“If the first mission rewards you with escape from Unit 913, the second might get you off the 9th floor... and the third—perhaps escape from the entire building.”

It sounded absurd.

And yet, it didn’t seem impossible either.

The missions weren’t so extreme they couldn’t be completed.

Well... aside from the fact that Baekgyeong’s penis-shaped chocolate was horrifying.

But if I closed my eyes and swallowed, it was just chocolate.

The sugar overload was another issue entirely. I could go into shock from how sweet it all was.

Still, if the system popup was real... the punishment for failure was too horrifying to ignore.

“Kissing, huh. Lewis’s chocolate seems a little too... intense.

Let’s skip that one. I’ll start with Isaac’s gift—”

“You didn’t read the fine print, did you?”

Baekgyeong scoffed at me, looking like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Lewis’s chocolate is actually the easiest mission.”

“What?!”

“Read the popup more carefully.”

At his prompting, I stepped closer and looked again.

There—faint text, only visible from up close.

1. Lewis’s chocolate gift – Shared consumption via kiss

(Additive: Alpha arousal stimulant)

2. Baekgyeong’s chocolate gift – Direct consumption

(Additive: Alpha pheromone concentrate for omega induction)

3. Isaac’s chocolate gift – Oral consumption required

(Additive: Heat cycle activator for omegas)

“What the actual fuck?!”

It felt like someone had smacked me in the back of the head.

“What kind of additives are these?!

And more importantly, what the hell is wrong with you three?

Why even give me Valentine’s Day gifts?!”

“I just said yes ‘cause they said I’d get to fuck you.”

Baekgyeong said it with a shrug, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

I shot a murderous glare at the other two.

Lewis looked ashamed and slowly lowered his head.

Isaac, on the other hand, gave a dry smirk, as if insulted to be lumped in with them.

“That wasn’t my reason.”

“Oh no? Then what?”

“I merely...”

Isaac looked up at me, his lips curling with that same eerie, unreadable smile.

“I wanted to see if alpha knotting suppresses the omega heat cycle.”

“Shut up. Who put you up to this? Huh? Who?!”

Before I could finish, their expressions all changed—softened, blurred.

Like people trying to remember a dream they didn’t know they’d had.

As if something foreign had wormed into their heads... and left behind orders they couldn’t refuse.

[Time Remaining: 02:46:12]

And even now—regardless of the four of us and our spiraling thoughts—

time marched on.

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