Work Text:
Mornings on campus always felt too loud for Ricky.
Not in the kind of way that made him cover his ears, but in the way that every sound came at him at once — the clatter of coffee cups, someone’s laugh echoing from the quad, the hollow beep of the library gate when students swiped their IDs. He liked sounds, of course; he was majoring in sound engineering, after all. But he preferred them when he could control the volume, trim the silence, adjust the reverb — like how some people tidy their desks to think better, Ricky tidied the noise.
This morning, though, his noise-canceling headphones hung around his neck instead of covering his ears. He was walking across the courtyard with a takeaway cup of black coffee in one hand, trying not to spill it as he balanced his laptop and notebook against his chest. His phone buzzed in his hoodie pocket — a group chat from his coursemates lighting up with memes and complaints about the morning lecture.
He didn’t open it. He never did until he was safely behind a door.
Instead, he slipped into the sound lab, the air-conditioning cool against his face, and exhaled in relief. It was a small, dim room with gray walls padded for acoustic treatment, a few desks littered with cables and mics, and that faint scent of solder and coffee that clung to every audio workspace.
He dropped his things on the table and opened his laptop.
The project brief glared back at him:
Assignment 3: Create a thematic playlist that explores “emotional progression” through sound.
Submission: 1 shared collaborative playlist (Spotify or equivalent) with a minimum of 12 tracks.
Ricky had rolled his eyes the first time he read it. He didn’t like “emotional” assignments. They felt messy — subjective — like the kind of thing people used to talk too much about. But it was easy enough to do. He already had dozens of playlists he’d made just to keep track of moods.
After a few minutes of scrolling through his library, he opened Spotify and clicked “New Playlist”. The cursor blinked in the title field for a long time before he finally typed:
For When You Don’t Know What You’re Feeling - Playlist
A soft huff escaped him — half amusement, half resignation. Fitting.
He began to fill it with some soft instrumentals, a few indie tracks, some lo-fi beats that matched the texture of rain against the window. It was background music for confusion, for the kind of emptiness that didn’t hurt but didn’t leave either.
When he finished, he hit Collaborate and left the shared link public. Not because he expected anyone to join — he just didn’t care.
The rest of the morning went by in loops of audio editing and half-listened lectures. His coffee went cold. The sky turned a pale blue that looked tired.
It wasn’t until later that night, after his roommate Matthew had fallen asleep and the dorm lights dimmed, that Ricky noticed something strange.
He was lying in bed, earphones in, scrolling absentmindedly through his playlist when he saw it — a song that wasn’t his.
It sat there between Motion Sickness and Coffee — both his choices — but this one was new:
Bloom – The Paper Kites.
He frowned. He hadn’t added that.
The little gray text below read, “Added by Anonymous.”
At first, he thought it was a glitch — maybe Spotify’s algorithm gone wild — but when he hovered over it, the notification popped up:
Collaborator: Anonymous has added a track.
“Huh,” he murmured under his breath.
It was odd. The song wasn’t out of place, though. If anything, it fit too well — the kind of gentle melancholy that belonged perfectly in his playlist’s tone. Curiosity tugged at him, so he pressed play.
A calm guitar intro filled his ears — soft, stripped down, honest. The kind of song that made him think of sunlight filtering through curtains and mornings that didn’t rush you. By the time the chorus came, something in his chest unclenched just a little.
He replayed it once, then twice.
Maybe whoever this “Anonymous” was, they understood what the playlist meant more than he did.
He didn’t think much of it after that. He closed his laptop, turned on his side, and let the song play one more time before sleep took him.
The next morning, there were two new songs.
One was a mellow jazz track, Autumn Leaves (Remastered), and the other — bizarrely — was Wannabe by the Spice Girls.
Ricky blinked. He couldn’t help it; he laughed. It burst out unexpectedly, soft but genuine. Whoever this “Anonymous” was, they had range.
He sipped his morning coffee, half amused, half bewildered. Then, without overthinking, he clicked Add Song and searched for one that matched the energy — something teasing but warm. He chose You Make My Dreams by Hall & Oates.
There. A reply.
He closed the playlist window with a faint smile.
Over the next week, the anonymous collaborator didn’t stop.
Every few days, Ricky would check, and there’d be a new song — sometimes beautifully melancholic, sometimes completely chaotic. The Night We Met. Electric Feel. Banana Pancakes. Even Barbie Girl.
It became a quiet ritual. He’d wake up, open the playlist, and see what “Anonymous” had said that day — not in words, but through whatever track they’d dropped in. He’d start replying, carefully curating the sequence as if they were talking in code. A song for a song. A mood for a mood.
It was ridiculous, he knew that. But it was also… strangely comforting.
He didn’t know this person — didn’t know their name, their face, anything. But there was something intimate in how they understood the emotional rhythm he was building.
One night, as rain pattered softly against the dorm window, he typed a message into his notes app, not intending to send it anywhere.
I don’t know who you are, but thank you for the music.
He stared at it for a while, then deleted it.
By the third week, even Matthew had noticed something different about him.
“You’ve been smiling at your screen a lot lately,” Matthew said one evening, sprawled upside down on his bed, legs dangling over the headboard. “Got a secret crush or something?”
Ricky rolled his chair away from his desk and muttered, “It’s a playlist.”
“A playlist?” Matthew snorted. “Bro, that’s not an answer. What’s her name? Or his. Or—whatever.”
“There’s no name,” Ricky said, tone deliberately flat. “Just… songs.”
Matthew groaned dramatically. “Oh my god, so you’re flirting through Spotify!”
“I’m not flirting.”
“Yeah, sure. Next you’ll tell me your love language is adding tracks.”
Ricky didn’t reply — mostly because he didn’t know what to say.
Because maybe Matthew was right. Maybe there was something quietly flirty about it. The back-and-forth rhythm of it, the way the playlist grew like a shared diary. But it wasn’t like he could explain that. Not when he didn’t even know who the other person was.
A few days later, “Anonymous” added Dog Days Are Over.
Ricky grinned at his laptop screen.
He scrolled through the song suggestions, hesitating only briefly before adding his reply: Somebody To You – The Vamps.
And for the first time since he started college, he found himself looking forward to mornings — not for lectures or assignments, but to see if someone, somewhere out there, had left him another song.
By the time the semester reached mid-October, the playlist had turned into something alive.
It wasn’t just a collection of songs anymore — it was a conversation that breathed in rhythm and melody. Every new track seemed to come at exactly the right time, like “Anonymous” could read the emotional undercurrent of Ricky’s week. When deadlines piled up, they’d drop in upbeat songs that felt like a pep talk. When Ricky pulled too many all-nighters in the studio, soft lullabies appeared as if to say “go to sleep, idiot.”
He still didn’t know who they were. He didn’t really need to.
But sometimes, late at night, as he sat in front of his glowing laptop in the sound lab, he’d find himself wondering what kind of person added Vienna by Billy Joel at 2:13 a.m.
Someone patient, maybe. Someone who understood what it was like to feel old before you should.
Gyuvin was not a morning person.
Which was deeply unfortunate, considering he hosted a morning radio show.
Technically, it was just a segment on the campus radio — The Breakfast Frequency — but the way Gyuvin treated it, you’d think he was running BBC Radio 1. He’d swagger into the booth five minutes before airtime, holding a half-eaten muffin in one hand, his ID card dangling around his neck, and his hoodie half-zipped because he could never find time to iron anything.
“Mic check, one-two,” he said into the microphone, voice still raspy from sleep. “Good morning, sleepyheads of South Korea International University! You’re listening to Kim Gyuvin’s Breakfast Frequency, the only show where we pretend to be awake before 10 a.m.”
He flicked a few switches, the soundboard lighting up in front of him like a cockpit. Across the glass, his co-host Hanbin — a journalism major student who was always suspiciously cheerful before sunrise — gave him a thumbs-up.
Gyuvin leaned closer to the mic, grinning. “So. Today’s playlist is called ‘For When You Don’t Know What You’re Feeling.’ Someone uploaded it to the campus radio submissions board last night, and honestly, it’s… kinda perfect? Oh and by someone, I meant me.”
He hit play.
The gentle strum of Bloom filled the booth.
Gyuvin closed his eyes for a moment, letting the soft chords settle. “It’s the first song I added into this playlist,” he murmured into the mic, “but don’t get confused, I’m just a mere collaborator. It’s not even my playlist in the first place. So whoever made this playlist, call me. We should be friends. Or like… emotionally codependent. Whichever comes first.”
Hanbin snorted. “You’re literally flirting with a Spotify link on air.”
Gyuvin grinned. “And I’d do it again.”
Ricky nearly spilled his coffee when he heard it.
He wasn’t a regular listener of the campus radio — he preferred silence when walking to class — but that morning, the café was playing it through their speakers. He was halfway through stirring sugar into his cup when he heard it:
“Whoever made this playlist, call me.”
His brain froze. His heart, unfortunately, did not — it stumbled like someone had pressed a wrong chord.
He blinked up at the ceiling speaker, confused. That was his playlist.
There was a laugh in the host’s voice — bright, teasing, boyish. He couldn’t see the face attached to it, but the sound had warmth. The kind of tone that felt like sunlight after weeks of gray weather.
He took his coffee and slid into a seat by the window, trying not to look suspiciously intrigued. The host kept talking — about random campus news, about a café reopening, about how the vending machine outside the dorms was still eating coins — and Ricky found himself… smiling.
It was stupid. He didn’t even know this person. But there was something about that voice — the casual confidence, the humor hiding underneath sincerity — that tugged at him.
He caught himself thinking, “Who’s this Kim Gyuvin guy?”
That afternoon, the name started circulating around campus more than usual. Apparently, Gyuvin’s show had mentioned the playlist, and now half the university was trying to figure out who made it.
Ricky’s group chat was full of messages:
omg this playlist is SO GOOD who’s the maker??
whoever did this got Gyuvin flirting on air 😭😭
i bet it’s someone from the music dept. vibes are too specific.
Ricky didn’t reply. He just locked his phone and tried not to smile.
Meanwhile, Gyuvin was having his own little crisis.
Because the more he thought about the playlist, the more he felt it — like a conversation he wanted to finish. Whoever this person was, they’d picked songs that made him feel seen in ways words didn’t.
He spent his evening sprawled across the radio booth couch, scrolling through the playlist again.
“‘For When You Don’t Know What You’re Feeling,’ huh?” he muttered. “Yeah, well… same.”
He hit shuffle.
The first song to play was Somebody To You.
He laughed quietly. “Oh, you are flirting back.”
The next morning, Ricky opened his playlist and saw a new addition:
Sunday Morning – Maroon 5.
Added by Anonymous.
He blinked. Then exhaled, amused.
It wasn’t just the song choice — it was the timing. Sunday morning, right as sunlight filtered through his window, right as he was holding a mug of coffee.
“Okay,” he whispered to the screen. “Now you’re showing off.”
He added his reply: Sunroof – Nicky Youre.
Somewhere across campus, Gyuvin’s phone buzzed with the notification. He grinned so wide his co-host threw a pencil at him.
“You’re still on that playlist?” Hanbin said. “Do you realize you’ve basically made it your love life?”
Gyuvin shrugged. “Maybe I like being emotionally mysterious.”
“You’re about as mysterious as a golden retriever.”
It wasn’t until the midterm festival that their paths finally crossed.
Ricky wasn’t supposed to be there — crowds weren’t his thing — but Matthew dragged him out with the promise of free food and cute dogs from the animal club. The campus was buzzing with stalls, fairy lights strung between trees, students laughing, live bands performing covers of pop songs with questionable tuning.
And then there was the radio booth.
A bright banner read: Breakfast Frequency: Live Recording Tonight!
Gyuvin stood behind the mic, hair slightly messy, denim jacket rolled at the sleeves, eyes bright even under the soft stage lights. He was laughing with a group of students, occasionally breaking into a mock-announcer voice as he tested the mic.
Ricky stopped mid-step.
It was him. The voice from the radio. The anonymous collaborator.
For a moment, he considered walking away. But then, as if fate was feeling mischievous, Gyuvin glanced up — and their eyes met.
It wasn’t dramatic. No slow-motion spark, no swelling background music. Just a moment of stillness in the noise, a second that felt longer than it was.
Gyuvin tilted his head slightly, curiosity flickering across his face. He didn’t know this stranger, but something about him — the quiet posture, the headphones looped around his neck — felt oddly familiar.
Ricky looked away first. He tried to act normal, pretending to examine a nearby stall selling lemonade. But he could feel Gyuvin’s gaze linger.
A few minutes later, when Gyuvin’s segment ended, he excused himself from the booth and walked straight toward the lemonade stand — casually, as if coincidence was on his side.
“Hey,” he said, smiling easily. “You were at the booth earlier, right?”
Ricky froze mid-sip. “…Maybe.”
Gyuvin chuckled. “That’s a mysterious answer.”
“I like mysterious answers.”
“Cool,” Gyuvin said, leaning on the counter. “Then here’s a mysterious question. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a certain playlist that went viral this week, would you?”
Ricky’s heart stuttered. “Why?”
“Because,” Gyuvin said, grinning wider now, “I think I’ve been talking to someone through music. And I have a feeling it might be you.”
For a long moment, Ricky didn’t say anything.
The crowd around them moved in fragments — laughter, chatter, the faint buzz of string lights overhead. Gyuvin stood across the lemonade stand with that infuriatingly easy smile, the kind that made silence feel like part of the conversation instead of the absence of one.
Ricky finally took a small sip of his drink and said, “You’re very confident for someone who’s guessing.”
Gyuvin leaned his elbow on the counter, eyes gleaming. “That sounds like something a guilty person would say.”
Ricky almost smiled. Almost. “Or someone who likes watching people guess wrong.”
“Touché,” Gyuvin said, pretending to think. “But if it’s not you, then whoever made that playlist deserves a medal. It’s… weirdly perfect.”
There was a warmth in the way he said it — not performative, not teasing — genuine. The kind of warmth that made Ricky feel uncomfortably seen.
He tried to look disinterested, but his hand betrayed him — it fidgeted with the condensation on his cup. “Maybe you just relate to sad people music.”
Gyuvin laughed, loud and unrestrained. “Maybe I do. Maybe sad people have better taste.”
Something loosened in Ricky’s chest.
It was ridiculous — they’d exchanged fewer than twenty words — yet Gyuvin’s energy felt magnetic. Like he didn’t need to try to pull people in. His brightness wasn’t loud; it was steady, like sunlight that didn’t demand attention but warmed everything anyway.
They ended up talking for thirty minutes. About random things — bad cafeteria food, professors who overused PowerPoint, how Ricky once accidentally recorded his neighbor’s snoring instead of a sound sample for his project.
Gyuvin laughed at everything. Not in a forced way — it was just that his laughter was the kind that lived close to the surface, ready to spill out at small absurdities.
When the festival began winding down, Gyuvin checked his phone. “I gotta head back to pack up the radio booth. But hey…”
He pulled out his phone, hesitating for half a beat before offering it to Ricky. “If I’m right — and you are the playlist guy — you should let me buy you coffee. For artistic collaboration purposes, of course.”
Ricky raised an eyebrow. “Artistic collaboration.”
“Yeah. You know — two tortured souls bonding over Spotify algorithms.”
Despite himself, Ricky smiled. It was small, but real. “You’re persistent.”
Gyuvin’s grin widened. “Only with people who make good playlists.”
Ricky took the phone and typed in his number. When he handed it back, his fingers brushed Gyuvin’s briefly — an accidental touch, barely there — yet it left a faint spark that lingered longer than it should’ve.
Gyuvin texted him that night.
Gyuvin: okay confession time i was 90% sure it was you
Gyuvin: your face when i brought up the playlist gave you away
Ricky: …i don’t make faces.
Gyuvin: yeah you do. it’s like “emotion but quiet.”
Ricky: that’s not a real thing.
Gyuvin: it is now.
Ricky stared at the screen for a while, then typed:
Ricky: fine. it was me.
Gyuvin replied instantly.
Gyuvin: called it 😎
Gyuvin: also hi, mystery playlist person
Ricky: hi, morning radio narcissist
Gyuvin’s next message came with a photo — a blurry selfie of him in the radio booth, peace-signing toward the mic.
Gyuvin: narcissist reporting for duty
Ricky laughed softly to himself. He didn’t reply right away, but for the first time in a long while, he fell asleep smiling.
The following weeks became a slow rhythm — texts, playlists, and increasingly convenient “coincidences.”
Gyuvin started showing up at the sound lab “by accident.” Sometimes he claimed he needed help editing his radio segments (“You’re the sound guy, right?”), and sometimes he just sat there, spinning lazily in the spare chair while Ricky worked.
“You’re distracting,” Ricky would mutter without looking up.
“That’s my natural charisma,” Gyuvin said, sipping an iced coffee that definitely wasn’t allowed near the equipment.
“You mean chaos.”
“Tomato, tomahto.”
Despite his protests, Ricky didn’t actually mind. He liked the noise Gyuvin brought — the clatter, the laughter, the background hum that filled the room. It made everything feel a little more alive.
And Gyuvin, for his part, found himself drawn to Ricky’s quiet focus. There was something soothing about the way he worked — how his brow furrowed slightly when adjusting sound levels, how he’d hum under his breath when checking frequencies.
One evening, Gyuvin asked, “Why sound engineering?”
Ricky hesitated. “Because… I like how sound holds emotion without needing words. It’s like—” He paused, searching for the right metaphor. “It’s like painting feelings in air.”
Gyuvin watched him, something soft flickering in his eyes. “That’s… beautiful.”
Ricky shrugged, embarrassed. “You asked.”
“I did,” Gyuvin said quietly. “And I’m glad I did.”
They started exchanging songs again — but this time, in person.
Gyuvin would walk into the lab with earbuds tangled around his fingers. “Okay, listen to this one. It’s got ‘us in a coffee shop at 3 p.m.’ vibes.”
Ricky would humor him, rolling his eyes but taking one earbud anyway. “You mean lazy and slightly out of tune.”
“Exactly.”
Sometimes they’d sit side by side, sharing one pair of earbuds, listening to songs that didn’t need explanations. Peach. Let’s Stay Together. Better Together.
Other times, Gyuvin would send him voice memos — half-sung lyrics, unfinished melodies. “This one’s for when I think too much,” he’d say.
Ricky replied once with a 10-second sound clip — soft rain recorded outside his dorm window. “This one’s for when thinking feels too loud,” he texted.
Gyuvin listened to it ten times before replying.
Gyuvin: i think we’re making a new playlist.
Ricky: yeah.
Gyuvin: what should we call it?
Ricky: maybe something simple.
Gyuvin: how about “For When You Do Know What You’re Feeling”?
Ricky’s chest tightened — in a good way.
Ricky: that’s good.
Their friendship became a quiet, steady presence.
They spent late afternoons at cafés, Gyuvin talking animatedly while Ricky stirred his coffee, listening more than he spoke. They took walks around campus after dark, Gyuvin pointing out constellations wrong on purpose just to make Ricky correct him.
Once, while watching the sunset from the dorm rooftop, Gyuvin said, “You ever notice how everything sounds softer at this hour?”
Ricky tilted his head. “Because there’s less wind?”
Gyuvin chuckled. “I meant emotionally softer, sound guy.”
Ricky smiled faintly. “Yeah. Maybe that too.”
Gyuvin looked at him for a long second, the fading light catching in his eyes. “You ever feel like… we met at the exact right volume?”
Ricky blinked, thrown off. “That’s not a real phrase.”
Gyuvin grinned. “It is now.”
It wasn’t love — not yet. But it was becoming.
In the shared silences, in the laughter that came easier, in the way their eyes found each other across noisy rooms. It was there — quiet but undeniable, like the low hum beneath every favorite song.
Neither said it out loud. They didn’t need to.
After all, some love stories start with a confession.
Theirs started with a playlist.
There was a strange comfort in how ordinary it all became.
Weeks blurred into a rhythm — Gyuvin’s radio show in the morning, Ricky’s sound lab sessions in the afternoon, and their overlapping lives in between. They didn’t need to plan their time together anymore; they simply happened to be where the other was.
Ricky would walk into the café near the campus gate and find Gyuvin already there, waving him over with two drinks and a grin. Gyuvin would drop by the lab at night under the pretense of “needing audio advice,” then stay just to talk until the janitor flicked the lights.
It wasn’t grand or dramatic — just soft moments stitched together. But somewhere along the way, that softness began to ache.
Ricky noticed first.
He’d be working, eyes on the screen, but every sound reminded him of Gyuvin — the creak of the chair Gyuvin always leaned back on, the faint whistle he made when concentrating, even the way laughter seemed to echo differently when Gyuvin was the one laughing.
He hated how aware he’d become. The smallest things got to him now — Gyuvin’s texts, his voice through the speaker, the warmth of his shoulder brushing his during late-night walks.
It wasn’t supposed to mean anything.
But it did.
One evening, Gyuvin invited him to the radio booth.
“You’ve never seen me in action,” he said, spinning the chair around dramatically. “Come on, sound guy, it’ll be fun.”
Ricky hesitated — crowds weren’t his thing — but when he saw the hopeful look in Gyuvin’s eyes, he found himself saying yes.
The booth was smaller than he expected — cluttered with sticky notes, tangled wires, a shelf full of energy drinks. Gyuvin handed him a spare headset and gestured to the chair beside him.
“Welcome to chaos central,” he said, flipping switches with practiced ease.
Through the glass, the red “ON AIR” light flicked on.
“Good morning, everyone!” Gyuvin said into the mic, voice instantly brighter. “This is Kim Gyuvin with your daily dose of bad jokes, good music, and questionable life choices. Today’s theme — songs you listen to when you like someone but don’t want to admit it.”
Ricky choked on his coffee.
Gyuvin turned slightly, eyes flicking toward him with a small, knowing smirk. “Do you ever have that feeling?” he said, still speaking into the mic. “Like every song suddenly sounds like someone?”
Ricky tried to look natural. His fingers tightened around the mug.
Gyuvin continued, tone softer now. “Sometimes, when you spend enough time with a person, you start hearing them even when they’re not there. Like silence starts sounding like them. Weird, right?”
His co-host Hanbin shot him a look — amused but curious. “That’s surprisingly poetic for 9 a.m., Gyuvin.”
Gyuvin laughed. “What can I say? I’m inspired.”
Ricky stared at the soundboard, pretending to analyze the EQ levels. But his heartbeat betrayed him — fast, uneven, loud enough he swore the mic could pick it up.
When the show ended, Gyuvin turned to him with that same easy grin. “You liked it?”
Ricky gave him a look. “Was that whole thing about me?”
Gyuvin blinked innocently. “What thing?”
“The… silence sounding like someone.”
Gyuvin shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Gyuvin—”
“Relax,” Gyuvin said, laughing softly. “You’re reading too much into it.”
But his eyes didn’t match the playfulness in his tone.
There was something else there. Something unsaid.
That night, Ricky lay awake listening to the rain, headphones on, but no music playing. Just the quiet hum of the world.
And in that quiet — he swore he could hear Gyuvin’s voice.
That stupid, bright, impossible voice that had become the sound his heart now recognized as home.
He closed his eyes and whispered into the dark, “I think I’m in trouble.”
For Gyuvin, the realization came slower, then all at once.
It happened on a Wednesday afternoon. They were sitting under the oak tree behind the library — their unofficial spot — sharing fries and trading song recommendations.
Ricky handed him one earbud. “Here. Listen.”
Gyuvin slipped it in, expecting something mellow or abstract like usual. Instead, the first line of the song hit him:
“I like you so much, you’ll know it…”
He turned, surprised. “Is this—?”
Ricky shrugged, eyes fixed on his soda can. “You said you wanted something with lyrics.”
Gyuvin smiled. “You know, that’s dangerously close to a confession.”
Ricky’s lips curled upward, barely. “Maybe it’s just music.”
But Gyuvin saw it — the tiny flicker of something behind his calm exterior. The kind of emotion that lived in the corners of his expression, soft and fleeting.
And suddenly, everything clicked. The late nights, the quiet smiles, the way Ricky looked away when their hands brushed — all of it.
He was falling.
Of course, the universe couldn’t let them have peace.
The next week, Gyuvin’s radio slot got extended — a huge opportunity for him. More airtime, more listeners. But it also meant less time in the sound lab. Less time with Ricky.
“Hey,” Gyuvin said one evening as they packed up equipment. “So, uh, my show’s moving to weekday mornings and weekends. It’s… kind of a big deal.”
Ricky smiled faintly. “That’s great.”
“Yeah.” Gyuvin hesitated. “But it means I’ll be around less.”
Ricky’s hands stilled on the cables. “Right.”
The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable — not like before. It felt heavier, full of unspoken things.
“I’ll still come by when I can,” Gyuvin said quickly. “You know, for artistic collaboration.”
Ricky forced a small laugh. “Of course.”
But that night, when Gyuvin left the lab, Ricky stayed behind long after. The hum of the machines filled the emptiness, and for the first time, it didn’t sound like Gyuvin. It just sounded like… silence.
For days, they texted less.
Gyuvin tried to tell himself it was fine — they were both busy. But every time he went on air, he found himself slipping into lines that weren’t part of the script.
“Today’s track is for people who miss someone they still see every day.”
“Sometimes, you don’t realize how quiet things were until someone’s laughter fills it.”
Hanbin teased him endlessly for it. “You’ve gone full lovesick poet, dude.”
Gyuvin groaned. “Shut up.”
But he couldn’t help it. Because no matter how much he talked into the mic, the one person he wanted to listen to wasn't replying.
On the fourth night, Ricky opened their playlist again. There was a new song added by “Anonymous”:
I Miss You, I’m Sorry – Gracie Abrams.
He stared at it for a long time. Then, with a small sigh, added his reply:
Come Back… Be Here – Taylor Swift.
And just like that, the conversation began again — through music, through silence, through everything they didn’t know how to say.
The end of the semester came quietly.
Exams, deadlines, empty coffee cups piling on desks. The campus felt thinner somehow — like everyone was half-here, half-already-leaving. Even Gyuvin’s usually lively radio booth felt subdued; his voice was still bright, but the laughter underneath had softened.
And Ricky…. He had buried himself in work.
The final sound engineering showcase was coming up, and he had volunteered to present an original piece — a soundscape project titled “Playlist For Two.” It was supposed to be simple: a layered collage of ambient sounds, snippets of melodies, and fragments of voices. But somehow, every test recording ended up carrying traces of Gyuvin — laughter, footsteps, echoes of conversations recorded by accident.
No matter how much he edited, Gyuvin was there.
And maybe that was the point.
The night before the showcase, Ricky stayed late in the lab. The clock read 1:47 a.m. He was hunched over the console, headphones clamped over his ears, when the door creaked open.
He didn’t need to look up to know who it was.
Gyuvin leaned against the doorway, hair messy, hoodie half-zipped, holding two cups of coffee. “You’re still here.”
Ricky didn’t turn. “So are you.”
Gyuvin walked in, setting one cup beside him. “Your roommate said you’ve been here all week. I thought you might’ve fused with the computer.”
“Almost,” Ricky muttered, eyes on the waveform. “Trying to finish the project.”
Gyuvin watched him for a moment, then sat down across from him. “Need help?”
Ricky paused. “You don’t do quiet very well.”
“I’m learning,” Gyuvin said softly.
The hum of the machines filled the room. Gyuvin’s coffee cup clicked lightly against the table. Outside, rain tapped against the window — steady, rhythmic.
After a long pause, Ricky said, barely above a whisper, “You stopped coming by.”
Gyuvin looked down at his hands. “You stopped replying.”
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“Me neither.”
Silence. But not the empty kind — the kind heavy with everything that had gone unsaid.
Finally, Gyuvin stood and walked around the table. “Can I hear it?”
Ricky blinked. “What?”
“Your project.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Ricky clicked play.
The speakers filled with soft ambient sounds — rain, footsteps, faint street noise. Then came layered fragments: a door creaking, laughter echoing distantly, the hum of a café, snippets of music fading in and out.
It was subtle, textured — like a memory built from sound.
And then, at the halfway mark, Gyuvin heard it — his own voice.
“Sometimes, silence sounds like someone.”
He froze.
The line faded into the next track — a soft melody played on piano, looping gently. Beneath it, Ricky’s voice murmured, almost lost in the mix:
“This is the sound of when you don’t know what you’re feeling.”
Gyuvin turned to him, eyes wide. “That’s me.”
Ricky nodded, not meeting his gaze. “You said it first.”
Gyuvin exhaled, something breaking open inside him — not in a painful way, but in the kind of way that finally lets light in.
He took a slow step closer. “You know what this sounds like, right?”
Ricky’s throat felt tight. “Don’t.”
“It sounds like love,” Gyuvin said. “Like you built it out of me.”
Ricky laughed softly — half a sob, half disbelief. “That’s not how sound engineering works.”
Gyuvin smiled. “Maybe not. But that’s what it feels like.”
He reached out, fingers brushing Ricky’s wrist, tentative but steady. “Hey,” he said, quieter now. “Look at me.”
Ricky did.
And in that moment, the noise of the world seemed to fall away — the rain, the hum, the static — until there was only this small space between them, charged with everything they hadn’t said.
Gyuvin’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You know what I realized? I kept trying to say it on air, through songs, through jokes, but you already knew. You’ve always known.”
Ricky’s voice trembled. “Knew what?”
Gyuvin smiled. “That you’re the only person I want to sound like.”
It was such a Gyuvin thing to say — ridiculous, poetic, sincere all at once — that Ricky didn’t even try to reply with words.
Instead, he stepped forward and kissed him.
It was gentle — hesitant at first, then sure, then softer again. The kind of kiss that felt less like a beginning and more like an answer to a question both of them had been asking without realizing it.
When they broke apart, Gyuvin’s forehead rested against his. “So… artistic collaboration?”
Ricky laughed quietly, eyes glinting. “Shut up.”
The next day, the sound showcase hall was full.
Ricky stood nervously by his console as his project played — Playlist For Two
The audience listened, still and silent. When the final note faded, the room stayed quiet for a moment before applause began to ripple through.
Gyuvin was at the back, beaming. He didn’t clap right away — he was too busy just… listening. Because beneath the applause, beneath everything, he swore he could still hear it: that quiet hum that had always felt like home.
Later, as they walked out together into the evening air, Gyuvin slung his arm casually around Ricky’s shoulder.
“So, sound guy,” he said. “What happens to the playlist now?”
Ricky smiled, faint but certain. “We keep adding to it.”
Gyuvin grinned. “Forever?”
“Maybe,” Ricky said. “For when we do know what we’re feeling.”
They stopped by the campus gate, watching the last of the sunlight fade into the city’s glow.
Gyuvin pulled out his phone, typed something, and hit Add Song.
Home – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.
Ricky glanced at the screen, then back at him. “Cheesy.”
Gyuvin shrugged, grinning. “Fitting.”
The night air hummed around them — the quiet, living kind of silence that felt like peace, like belonging.
And when Ricky leaned his head lightly against Gyuvin’s shoulder, he realized something he should’ve known all along:
Some people don’t just share songs.
They become the music itself.