Chapter Text
The amp lets out a thin, dying screech before the sound dies completely.
Minhyuk stares at it, blinking, as if the noise might crawl back to life if he wills it hard enough.
Across the room, Wonwoo pulls out his earplugs, blinking. “That sounded expensive.”
“Don’t,” Joshua warns softly, rubbing his temple. “He’s going to explode.”
Minhyuk doesn’t. Not yet. He just stares at the amp like it personally betrayed him.
“What the hell happened?”
Kihyun, crouched by the pedalboard, sighs and unplugs the cable. “Not the amp. Me.”
Minhyuk blinks. “What?”
“Yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m out.”
Minhyuk’s throat works. “Out as in… break time out? Or—”
“Out as in gone,” Kihyun says, not cruel, not kind either. “My cousin got me a studio gig in Daegu. I leave tonight.”
The rest of the band doesn’t move. Someone’s gum pops. The clock ticks. The air tastes like instant coffee and burnt electricity.
Joshua’s head jerks up. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not,” Kihyun answers, his voice steady. “You guys will be fine without me. You’ve got a solid set list—”
“Without a bassist,” Minhyuk cuts in. “We have a set list and no bassist.”
Kihyun shrugs, guilt flashing briefly in his eyes. “You’ll figure it out. You always do.”
Minhyuk forces a laugh, brittle and too loud. “You’re kidding, right? The festival’s in forty-eight hours.”
“Yeah.” Kihyun shoulders his bag. He pats Minhyuk’s shoulder as he passes, his pick still in his palm, a half-moon bite in the plastic. “Good luck.”
The door shuts behind him. The room hums with the fluorescent light’s buzz—low, steady, and cruel.
The silence that follows feels like feedback—an endless ringing that only Minhyuk can hear.
Their drummer, Wonwoo, is the first to speak. “We could call Mingyu. He played bass for—”
“He’s in Japan,” Minhyuk says automatically.
He’s already run the names in his head. Mingyu, Jeonghan, that second-year kid with the wrist brace. None of them will work.
He sits on the amp, head in his hands, breathing through the exhaustion that’s been clinging to him all week.
Festival slot. Prime time. Their first real shot.
“We’ll find someone,” he says eventually. The words taste like a lie.
Joshua exchanges a look with Wonwoo. It’s the kind of look people give before saying something that will hurt.
“There’s someone who could do it,” Joshua says slowly.
Minhyuk looks up. “Who?”
The hesitation is answer enough.
“No,” Minhyuk says, already standing. “Absolutely not.”
Outside, the corridor hums with another band rehearsing down the hall—basslines bleeding through thin walls, voices laughing.
It’s a cruel kind of sound. Familiar. Alive.
“Come on,” Wonwoo says, following him out. “He’s good. You know he is.”
“He’s—” Minhyuk stops, jaw tightening. “He’s not an option.”
“You said you wanted the best shot for the festival,” Joshua calls from the doorway. “And he’s the best.”
Minhyuk turns, the fluorescent light overhead flickering just enough to cast shadows across his face. “Don’t say his name.”
No one does. They don’t need to. It’s there, hanging between them, buzzing louder than the amp ever did.
That night, Minhyuk lies awake in the rehearsal room, back against the wall, staring at the string lights someone forgot to unplug.
They blink lazily—warm, unfocused dots of gold. The sound of the street seeps in through the cracked window: scooters, laughter, a stray dog barking.
He scrolls through his contacts.
His thumb hovers over one name.
It’s been two years since they last spoke. Two years since his voice was the last thing he heard on the night they imploded—the last person he thought of when every chord felt like a wound.
He remembers how their last argument ended:
“You’ll regret walking out like this.”
“I already do.”
He closes his eyes, breath catching somewhere between anger and longing.
The cursor on the phone screen blinks at him, waiting.
He presses call.
The dial tone stretches, hollow and unfamiliar. He almost hangs up when the click comes through—soft, followed by a silence that feels like a held breath.
Then— “Still calling me for emergencies, huh?”
Minhyuk doesn’t answer right away. His voice won’t cooperate.
“I guess some things never change,” he says, and there’s something like laughter buried under the words, but it sounds tired. Older.
Minhyuk exhales, slow. “Can you still play?”
“Depends,” he replies. “Can you still sing?”
It’s not forgiveness. Not even close.
But Minhyuk finds himself smiling anyway, weakly—the corners of his mouth trembling like they’ve forgotten how.