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"Gotta go change the bass strings today."
Jooyeon wasn't fully awake yet, but his brain had already begun working.
Bass, change strings, gotta go to the music store.
His bass string snapped during practice yesterday. Without any warning, the string had snapped and cut his fingertips, leaving a nasty gash.
Snap.
Jooyeon vaguely remembered that moment. It felt as if something in his mind had snapped along with it.
Its bleeding
That was his first thought
Jooyeon froze, letting his head droop as he stared at the bright red trickling down his fingertips. He remained still, allowing the initial sting to fade into a tingling numbness, and eventually, into nothingness.
His mind went completely blank. The entire episode lasted less than a minute, yet he couldn't summon a single shred of emotion.
Maybe it had all flowed out with the blood. Maybe.
That was what he thought.
"Jooyeon, you should take a break. You're bleeding."
"Jooyeon?"
"Jooyeon-ah?"
"Jooyeonie?"
Multiple voices from his bandmates reached his ears, some were concerned, some puzzled. Different people, different emotions, with different intentions behind their words. By the time these words reached his brain, they all merged into nearly identical waves, indistinguishable from one another. All he could feel was being engulfed in an overwhelming hum, unable to make out anything.
"Ah, the string snapped."
"Why did it snap all of a sudden? Didn't I replace it with steel ones not long ago? Have I not been practising enough? Is that why it snapped? Ugh, now everyone has to pause practice... No, I have to go get new strings right now—"
... So noisy
...So many people are talking
Please, just… be quiet…
"...Lee Jooyeon? Jooyeon? Are you okay?"
It wasn't until his numb, ice-cold hands were enveloped in warmth that the droning noise began to recede like a tide. What followed, replacing it, was a gentle male voice, reassuring, yet carrying a trace of barely perceptible anxiousness.
Jooyeon blinked, returning from the chaotic darkness back into the practice room.
"Seungmin...?"
Two syllables, with a faint, lingering drawl. His blurred vision was still struggling to focus, but he had already, instinctively, called out that name, like a desperate incantation for help.
He called out cautiously, carefully hiding his unease, his trembling and his fragility along with it.
By the time his vision cleared, Oh Seungmin's worried face instantly filled his entire field of view.
"Your furrowed brows look so serious..."
Whatever had snapped in his mind just now was being mended by the person before him, tied into a small, secure knot, forcibly pulling him back to clarity.
"I'm fine. I was probably too focused during practice, hehe... Can't believe I actually broke a string..."
By the time Jooyeon looked up again, he had regained his usual bright smile. Then, grinning sheepishly, he pointed at the bass in his hands and plucked at the strings half-heartedly.
Just like nothing was wrong.
Jooyeon seemed to hear his own voice echoing from somewhere deep within his heart. It was both a description of the present and a self-hypnosis.
But clearly, this hypnosis did not fully work on himself, nor had it worked on Seungmin.
How could nothing be wrong?
"...Let's call it a day. Is that okay, Gunil-hyung?"
Seungmin's move caught Jooyeon completely off guard. For a moment, the smile he had been using as a disguise froze, and his eyes darted around uncertainly.
Practice... was ending early because of "him".
Trembling slightly, Jooyeon glanced up and saw that the furrow between Seungmin's brows still hadn't eased. Lowering his gaze, he saw that the grip on his injured hand hadn't loosened in the slightest.
"Seungmin's worrying again."
Jooyeon opened his mouth, but forcibly swallowed the words back down, never actually letting them out.
"Mm? Oh, sure. Everyone worked hard today, leaving early to rest sounds good."
After receiving Gunil's nod of agreement, Seungmin swiftly packed up both their instruments, took Jooyeon by the hand, tossed out a "Thanks, hyung," and left the practice room.
The sound of their shoes hitting the corridor floor echoed hollowly, carrying a rhythm that felt like a prelude to an incoming storm, making one's heart pound with fear.
Jooyeon kept his eyes locked on his own wrist that was being held firmly, not daring to look up at Seungmin's back, which seemed to be burning with anger. The bass slung over his shoulder bumped lightly against him with each small, hurried step forward, as if gently chiding him for his actions.
"Seungmin... Are you angry?"
He shouldn't have asked that. He sounded so pathetic.
"Are we heading off to eat? What do you want to eat, Seungmin... Ah, I promise I won't be picky this time!"
It sounded completely unconvincing.
“Ah, there’s a new fried chicken place that just opened… Wanna go?”
Still no response. Jooyeon even stumbled nervously over his words.
"Hey, hey, Seungmin, you're walking too fast, my foot hurts..."
Ugh, he ended up saying it anyway.
It actually didn't hurt at all. It was just... too quiet.
“Your foot hurts now, but your hand didn’t hurt earlier?”
Who knows how long they had been walking in that "stormy" silence when Seungmin finally stopped. His voice was hoarse as he spoke, but his back remained rigid, and he didn't turn around. Looking closely, one could see a slight tremor in his shoulders, whether from anger or perhaps... something closer to heartache.
The stubborn smile Jooyeon had been forcing onto his face fell with a soft thud the moment the last word left Seungmin’s lips.
"I'm... I'm sorry..."
His lips parted, accidentally letting a tiny fragment of his hidden brokenness leak out. His dark eyes darted around helplessly, unable to find a place to rest, just like his heart, which had snapped its strings and was now plummeting, unable to find a landing spot.
He didn't even know why he was panicking, why he was so anxious, or when he had started to feel like this. He had no idea...
No idea..no idea..no idea..no idea..no idea...
"No, that's not what I want to hear."
Seungmin, who had been walking ahead, let out a soft sigh and finally turned around. But then he froze.
Jooyeon was completely off... Something was very wrong.
The young man, usually so full of laughter and energy, now looked trapped in some kind of emotional breakdown. The corners of his mouth kept trying to lift into a smile, only to tremble and fall again. His entire face contorted into a frantic mix of joy and despair, unfamiliar, unsettling, yet it gave Seungmin the raw feeling that "this was the real Lee Jooyeon".
Seungmin seemed to hear that dissonant hum, too.
It was the kind of dull, deafening buzz that comes from a string stretched to its absolute limit before snapping.
"Haah... haah... cough..."
It was like that time he'd fallen into the creek as a kid, drowning, unable to breathe, everything turning blurry before his eyes.
Instinctively, Jooyeon's hands flew to his own throat. His tongue hung limp, and he gasped painfully, yet no air reached his lungs.
His ears were ringing again.
He could hear nothing but his own ragged breathing and the frantic pounding of his heart. He didn't even know if Seungmin was still there. Had he scared him off? Even though he knew, he knew Seungmin wasn't that kind of person, but he couldn't stop having that fearful thought.
"Jooyeon, look up!"
...Can't hear clearly. Who's talking?
Jooyeon froze for a moment, as if trying to identify the voice's owner and what he was trying to say.
"Jooyeon, look up!"
"Look at me!"
This time, he understood those two sentences. But before he could react, a pair of familiar hands covered his own, then gently tilted his face upwards.
Still fighting for oxygen, Jooyeon felt his left eye spasm reflexively as his head was being lifted up. He quickly squeezed it shut, leaving only his right eye open, struggling to make out Seungmin's expression.
"Haagh... Seung—"
But before the name could fully leave his lips, its owner gently, yet firmly, pushed it back inside with a kiss.
"Breathe."
"Mmm..."
The ragged sound of gasps for air was starkly clear in the empty hallway. The bass that had been slung over Jooyeon's shoulder now leaned, forgotten, against the wall, looking especially lonely compared to the two figures locked in an embrace.
Jooyeon's lungs slowly began to draw in air again. Almost by instinct, he passively accepted the oxygen Seungmin was providing him, then greedily drew it all into his own body.
It was just that, somewhere along the line, what had started as a serious, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation quietly shifted its purpose. It was not known whose tongue had first tangled with whose, or whose teeth had collided against whose.
Initially, it was Seungmin giving air from above, but as they intertwined, it gradually reversed. In the end, it was Seungmin who found his face being gently cradled.
"Don't bite me... Jooyeon..."
In a brief pause between kisses, someone seemed to mumble a faint, muffled protest. Not only did it go unanswered, but their positions were smoothly reversed, with Seungmin's back now pressed firmly against the solid wall.
Jooyeon clung on to him like a starving stray unwilling to let go of its first meal in days. He kissed with a desperate, consuming depth that slowly turned Seungmin's legs to jelly.
Now, it was Seungmin who was left breathless.
Thud.
It wasn't until the bass leaning against the wall beside them slipped and fell with a sound that they reluctantly drew apart, putting a sliver of space between them.
A silvery strand still connected their lips, glinting under the corridor's weak light, a glaring reminder of what had just happened. Realising this, both blushed with a shared, unspoken understanding.
"...Feeling better?"
"...Huh? Oh. Yeah, yeah."
The sudden question startled Jooyeon, and he flinched. His flustered, slightly silly reaction helped ease some of the awkwardness in the air.
"Let's go then."
Seungmin composed himself with startling speed. If not for the tips of his ears, which are burning red, Jooyeon might have thought the kiss was just his own imagination.
"Where are we going?"
Music store?
Jooyeon slung the bass back over his shoulder, giving a little hop to let the strap settle into place.
When he looked up and saw Seungmin's barely suppressed grin, it finally dawned on him how silly his little move had been. He did that all the time, though… Why did it suddenly feel so embarrassing now? Tsk.
Without calling attention to Jooyeon’s fluster, the man with the crinkled smile simply curved his slightly flushed lips and slid his own thinly callused fingers from playing the piano into the hand thickly callused from playing the bass.
He slipped them in, gave a gentle squeeze, and pulled Jooyeon towards him.
"Back home, to bandage you up."
As he spoke, his thumb brushed over the wound that had stopped bleeding and was slowly forming a scab. A lovely shade of pink bloomed across his cheeks.
Jooyeon watched him, and the thought of kissing him again suddenly emerged.
A fine bass is nothing without the right strings.
The untimely thought popped into his mind, but he didn't brush it away. Instead, he clung to this baffling thought, cupping the face before him once more and whispering, "Can I?" After receiving a nod, he eagerly lost himself in their next kiss.
The moment their lips met again, Jooyeon thought, he had found his string before his bass.
It's called Oh Seungmin's heartstring.
Jooyeon blinked, finding himself back in his own bed. He glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand, it's still early morning.
Shifting his gaze slightly to the right, he noticed a glass of water with a note tucked underneath. Puzzled, he reached over and brought it close enough to read.
“If you still feel dizzy when you wake up, drink some water.”
“I’ve gone out for a run. I’ll take you to the music store when I’m back.”
“Don’t push yourself so hard next time. It’s okay to depend on me a little more.”
“After all, I am Jooyeonie's hyung ㅋㅋㅋ”
Looking at those few small lines of text, Jooyeon smiled, a genuine one that rose from somewhere deep inside. It felt like it had been a long, long time since he’d last felt this light.
Just as he was about to fold the note and put it away, his eyes scanned and noticed another line on the back of the note.
“Where did you learn to kiss like that…?”
Yesterday’s memories came flooding back all at once. The long-haired young man’s face flushed with shyness, and he buried it in his hands, letting out a small, muffled squeal.
Meanwhile, Seungmin, who had finished his run and was now leaning against the doorframe eavesdropping, heard the cry from inside. He pressed the back of his hand to his lips and laughed softly.
If a string snapped, then just restring it.
Replace it with a new one.
With a better one.
You don’t have to keep bearing it all alone anymore. Let me. Let me be the string that firmly holds you in place.
Lee Jooyeon, you’re such an idiot.
Only finding your string now, when it’s been right beside you all along, always cared for, and always caring.
Once he’d laughed and listened his fill, Seungmin turned the doorknob and poked his head in before the person inside could react.
“Let’s go. Time to head out and get those strings replaced.”
Can’t have the bassist finally finding his own string while his bass still hadn't gotten a new one, right?
After all, it had been neglected long enough since yesterday. Poor thing.
The weather’s perfect now. Let’s go out. I’ll go with you.
“Hey, don’t leave your bass behind again.”
“Yah, Oh Seungmin! Are you teasing me?!”
The one smiling far too much pulled the red-faced bassist closer, and just a few centimetres before their lips met, murmured lightly, “Not teasing you. Just playing with you.”
Jooyeon felt like he was losing his mind. For the first time, he understood what it truly meant to have one’s heartstrings plucked.
--- End ---