Chapter Text
Hyunwoo lies awake at 3:47 AM and listens to the city breathe.
The TV flickers on mute—some late-night drama he doesn’t follow, blue light washing the room in cold static. Rain drums against the window in arrhythmic patterns, too uneven to be soothing. A car alarm bleats three blocks over. Someone’s air conditioner hums in the apartment below.
Everything sounds wrong.
He’s gotten used to this: the insomnia, the quiet, the way his apartment feels like a waiting room for a train that never arrives. He scrolls through his phone without reading anything, thumb moving on muscle memory. Opens Spotify. Closes it. Opens it again.
The playlist is still there. our sound, lowercase, no punctuation, because Minhyuk said capital letters felt too serious, and Hyunwoo had laughed and kissed him instead of arguing.
He hovers over it. Thumb trembling slightly. Thinks about deleting it for the thousandth time. Thinks about all the reasons he should.
He presses play before he can stop himself.
The first song is one he produced two years ago—back when Minhyuk would sit on the studio couch with his legs tucked under him, humming harmonies that Hyunwoo would later build entire arrangements around. The second is a demo they never finished. The third makes him skip forward so fast his thumb cramps.
Every song reminds him of Minhyuk.
Every song does.
He’s not sure if he misses Minhyuk, or just the version of himself that existed when Minhyuk did. The Hyunwoo who knew how to laugh at bad jokes. Who didn’t flinch at brightness. Who could fall asleep to the sound of someone else breathing.
The refrigerator hums louder, like it's trying to fill the silence for him. The TV light flickers against the wall, painting shadows that look almost like someone sitting across from him. Almost. The rain softens, turns to mist against the glass.
His phone buzzes.
An email notification lights up the dark.
[NEW PROJECT: Artist Collaboration – Lee Minhyuk]
His breath stops. The rain seems to stop with it.
He shouldn't open it. Should delete it.
His finger hovers over the delete button.
Then he opens it.
Label: Starship Entertainment
Role: Lead Producer
Timeline: 8 weeks
First session: Monday, 10 AM
Below the details, there's a demo file. Hyunwoo stares at it until the screen starts to blur.
He should decline. He should forward it to Kihyun, who’s better with ballads anyway, who won’t have to pretend he doesn’t know exactly how Minhyuk takes his coffee or what note he struggles with when he’s tired. Who won't have to sit across from him in a small room and pretend they're strangers.
Instead, he presses play, pulling his headphones on with hands that won't quite steady.
Minhyuk's voice pours through—clearer than he remembers, steadier, but still unmistakably him. The tone that used to wake Hyunwoo up with off-key singing in the shower. The softness that made every lyric sound like a confession.
The song is about trying to move on.
Minhyuk sings it like he means it.
Hyunwoo closes his eyes and feels something crack open in his chest—not dramatic, just a small fracture, like ice giving way. He lets the track play through to the end. Then once more. Then again, until the sky starts to pale and the rain finally stops and he realizes his face is wet.
He's not sure when he started crying.
The apartment settles around him: fridge motor clicking off, pipe knock in the wall, the slow drip of rain easing from the gutter. The song fades but doesn't end—it lingers, caught in the corners of the room like smoke.
He looks around as though the sound might be visible somewhere—caught on the blinds, resting in the blue glow of the TV, hiding between the folds of his blanket. Everything seems to carry Minhyuk's name now. The air feels tuned to the wrong key, every frequency slightly off.
He scrolls back to the email. Reads it twice. Three times. His fingers hover over the reply box like the edge of a cliff. He thinks about all the ways this could go wrong. All the ways it already has.
At 6:32 AM, he types three words.
I’ll take it.|
He doesn’t sign his name. Doesn’t add anything else. Just hits send before he can change his mind.
Outside, the city wakes up loud and indifferent. Cars splash through puddles. A neighbor’s radio turns on somewhere below—faint, tinny, out of tune. Someone laughs in the hallway. Life continuing, oblivious.
Hyunwoo sits in the blue television light, head bowed, listening to the refrigerator hum itself into another verse. He thinks about how some sounds you never learn to unhear—and how some of them, maybe, you don't want to.
He thinks about Minhyuk's voice—the way it always filled silence like light spilling through blinds—and for the first time in months, he doesn't press stop. He lets the demo play one more time.
Just a touch of longing instead of despair.
The rain starts again, softer now. Forgiving.