♯ ⋮ 𝄞 areu4ryul.ᐣ.ᐟ ༉

You slowly blink a couple of times to focus on not throwing up, distracted by the echoes of laughter around you and the liquid fire in your throat as you set the shotglass down. You have to swallow nothing twice to stop yourself dry heaving from the alcohol. This new brand of liquor was… strong as hell, to say the least.

“Ryul! Your turn!” Someone on your left announces, and you’re too lazy to turn but you see a hand appear to fill up everyone’s glass again. In the background, Ryul stands up and clears his throat as you shake your head and pull your empty shotglass towards yourself - you remember the stack of paperwork on your desk in your minds eye and you were NOT going to touch any excel spreadsheet with a hangover.

To distract others from noticing you not drinking, you help to push the freshly filled glasses towards the others and slump back down in your seat.

“Here’s a toast to…. every hardworking person at this table! Cheers!” Ryul says, raising his glass of pale yellow beer. He’s drunk and he looks the part - his yellow sweater is untucked, sporting a few decorative drops of spilled drink and his hair is somehow messier than usual. His sweater rides up to expose his torso when he raises his arm and you look away in only a little bit of disbelief, but it’s mostly because you’re already light-headed and you want to go home. The table boo’s him in unison and someone says something about repeating a toast, but you don’t hear it.

You’ve accidentally looked away from Ryul and directly at something you’re actively distracting yourself from. Or rather, someone.

Ohyul.

He’s distracted looking at Ryul now, joining in on dogpiling him and insisting he be the only one that drinks for that terrible toast. You’re too relaxed now to pull your eyes away from his blue button-up that has just enough buttons undone, and you can’t stop your traitorous brain from thinking about him. Against your will and better judgement, you fixate on his jaw and your relationship flashes past your eyes - you can’t deny that you miss him. It’s been weeks since your last conversation outside of work and he looks so alive and animated in this moment, right across the table from you that you feel your heart clench. He’s so near yet so far away.

A shout startles you into alertness.

It’s Ryul again, loudly proclaiming, “KWON OHYUL! Since you have soooo much to say, you take a shot and the next toast is yours!”, which doesn’t make sense but everyone has reached that stage of inebriation where they encourage any breathing creature to drink more, so Ohyul gets egged on to finish his small cup of soju - peach flavoured, because he thinks every other flavour is garbage. The moment he turns to the table - towards you - to take his drink, you immediately look down at your own glass as if it was the most interesting thing you’ve ever seen. He slides his emptied glass across the table and again, the floating hands with an endless alcohol supply appear on your left to fill it right back up.

You can feel Ohyul’s eyes on you and you’re slightly afraid he’s about to say something about your lack of alcohol and you'd really hate to be pressured into drinking more - so you quickly reach out to push his cup back towards him first. He meets you halfway, wrapping his fingers around the rim of the small cup and the pads of his fingers brush against the back of yours.

Immediately, you pull away like you’ve been electrocuted. Your head snaps up, curling your hand in and closing your fist in such haste that your pointer finger catches on the rim of the cup and that stupidly small thing tips over towards you. The sickly sweet liquid starts spreading across the table, and you quickly push your chair back so it doesn’t spill on you. You don’t have paper towels on standby, so you just sigh as the soju drips off the edge of the table, forming a small puddle near your feet.

It’s just your luck that Woojin had begun loudly singing from the far right corner of the table a few seconds ago so this drew minimal attention.

For a split second, you look up from the tiny pool to see Ohyul’s reaction, before tearing your gaze away because your seat neighbour is handing you a bunch of tissues. Unfortunately, half a second is enough to register his expression - cheeks flushed from alcohol and a mildly surprised expression with his lips parted in a slight ‘O’ shape. The person brandishing tissue is on your left, and you realise that its Louis. He had been the overly-generous bartender the whole night. His eyes are suspiciously clear and you just know that getting everyone ridiculously drunk is his petty revenge on everyone jokingly saying that he can’t drink because he’s ‘just a babyyyy!’, despite being old enough years ago with a tolerance that would surprise people.

You take the tissues gratefully and wipe the edge of the table but the soju has mostly already migrated to the floor so you do a cursory wipe across the surface of the table and drop the bunch of tissues into the soju lake to absorb on its own time.

“Are you good?” Louis asks softly, and you can only nod silently as u pull your chair back to the table. You stretch your legs out as you stifle a yawn, and your foot brushes against the table leg and strangely, you notice Ohyul turn to you from the corner of your eye and the table leg… moves away…? You immediately look under the table because the table cannot be bending the laws of physics no matter how drunk you are, and you realise that you did not brush against the table leg - unless Ohyul had changed his name to Table in the past 35 seconds. You close your eyes in defeat and draw your legs back awkwardly.

In your moment of weakness, Louis betrays you by announcing that after Ohyul makes his toast, you shall go next, because you spilled his drink. You smack Louis on the arm as Ohyul stands up for his toast.

“Let’s see… I wanna raise a toast to the people who refuse to reply to my messages,” Ohyul raises a different, filled glass in the air and you might be mistaken but he swivels ever so slightly in your direction before dropping his voice and continuing, “Or… just the person.”

The scandalised chorus of ‘Ooh’s and ‘Ahh’s from the table drown out the last few words of his statement, and without it, it’s just a common problem in the workplace. Your colleagues joyfully take a swig of their drinks and you wish you could unhear that last bit, but the tiny coil of dread in your gut knows that he said to for you. To you. You relinquish your grip on your abandoned cup and you begin to wish you had drunk more so you could forget this tomorrow. No such luck, though, because Louis has abandoned his bartending position to usher you to make the next toast.

You squeeze your eyes shut and imagine shanking Louis with the nearest bottle opener before slowly getting up. Your colleagues are looking at you expectantly and you take this freely-given opportunity.

“Uh… We should cheers to someone that avoids all their problems,” You say, voice surprisingly steady in the silence. A statement thats just general enough.

Louis claps you on the back and the table loudly hums in agreement. Fragmented feedback reaches you - “That’s so me,” “Yo that is so real…” and notably, Woojin slowly going: “…what’s the beef?”. But he gets ignored in favour of everyone reaching for their drinks again. Relieved from the pressure, you take advantage of the chatter and carefully look at the one person you indirectly said this to.

Ohyul does not drink. Instead, his jaw is clenched and he is looking somewhere above your head - pointedly not looking at you. You got him. The victory is short lived, though, because to your dismay he stands up the moment you sit down and raises his empty glass. Surely not…

“Let’s raise a toast to the people who said they needed you and then disappeared!” He says with a strange gusto. Nobody is really registering the contents of the toast at this point - they’re just looking for any excuse to drink so nobody raises an eyebrow to the misplaced venom in his words - they just whoop and reach for a refill. Your eyebrows draw together in disbelief and anger because you know he said that just for you and you cannot believe that these are his first words to you in weeks! It’s so uncalled for that you snatch up Louis’ glass of mystery drink and forgetting that the relationship between you and Ohyul was a secret to everyone, you say the meanest thing you can think of in your clouded state-

“We should probably raise a toast for the times that you never called me.”

Now, your colleagues aren’t drunk enough to let that statement pass unquestioned so you receive a few questioning glances. Half the table stops talking to process what you just shouted and panic begins to set in. However, you got the reaction you wanted. Ohyul’s head snaps up to meet your eyes and you feel a jolt of shock in your chest. You just wanted to defend yourself but in his eyes is not anger or retaliation - he looks hurt. He blinks and as quickly as the hurt manifested on his face, it disappears under the usual mask of an easy-going smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. You only have a second to recover before your colleagues successfully decipher your toast so you look away and say the first rallying word you can conjure up.

“HUZZAH!” You say, and down the mystery amber liquid in the stolen glass, praying that everyone would be too far gone to think too deeply. They did, in fact, overlook your statement - but only because you choke on the drink and start coughing so badly they become concerned instead. You didn’t know what you expected to be in Louis’ cup, but it sure wasn’t straight fireball whiskey. This violent coughing fit ends the night, thankfully leaving no more openings for awkward passive-aggressive encounters with Ohyul.

“Huzzah? Why was that the only word you could think of..?” Louis slings his bag over his chest, and you know he asked just to poke fun at you so you scrunch your face up and make a ‘Tsk!’ noise.

“But are you okay?” Louis asks for real this time, and you can hear the apology in his voice. You just smile and wave him away - he's unknowingly done enough damage to you and your pride tonight. You stuff your belongings into your bag as he almost insists on walking you home but he gets pulled away in conversation by someone behind you. You don't bother turning around to tell him you're going - you just slip away.

The cool, dry air hits you the moment you step outside and you take in a deep breath to clear your head and exhale it all in a puff of air. That supper was entirely too eventful, and not in a good way. The chatter behind you fades away and you can't help but think about how the whole reason you asked for a break in the relationship was because Ohyul was so closed off the whole time - he never told you anything without you prompting, he never told you when he was having a hard time and he would just shut down and walk away from any conversation even bordering on emotional. You accepted invitation after invitation to spend time with him during the break, hoping he would just talk, but he never opened up. So you stopped talking, stopped replying and stopped opening your door to him.

You reach the other side of the street when a voice calls out from behind you, startling you out of your thoughts.

“Hey,” Ohyul says, “I'll walk you home.”

Your eyes jump to his face. In the dim illumination of the sparse streetlamps, you can't see his face very well. You would refuse, but after whatever went down at supper, you suspect that he finally wants to have a long overdue conversation. So you let him catch up to you.

“How did you know I left? I didn't even tell Louis..?” You ask, not really because you want to know - more out of politeness than anything else.

“I… uh, distracted him and talked him out of walking you home so that I could… do it instead,” he says quietly, eyes downcast.

You hum in acknowledgement, waiting for him to continue but he just keeps walking, his eyes trained on the pavement, not saying a word. You glance at him questioningly but he refuses to look at you.

You walk ten steps.

Twenty steps.

Fifty.

A hundred.

Anger, resentment and confusion suddenly flares in your chest, a familiar feeling. If he was going to stay stubbornly silent like every other time he asked you to talk, then why did he choose to walk you home then? You're so sick of being the one to initiate, to speak up first and bridge the gap all the time. But this time, as quickly as the fire burst in you, it's subdued by the heavy feeling of tiredness.

The further you walk, the heavier it weighs on your chest until it almost feels like a physical shround covering you. You realise that this is just like every other time - him asking to see you, to eat with you, to talk, just for minimal superficial words to be exchanged. You got your hopes up for nothing and you’re so tired of this.

You keep walking.

Two hundred.

Five hundred.

Nine hundred steps before you lose count and start again - by this time, almost ten minutes had passed in silence. You refuse to speak first out of spite, and you keep counting your steps so you don't have to think about the seemingly mute figure beside you.

Eleven minutes and one thousand two hundred and ninety eight steps later, you arrive at your apartment building. You have to take a deep breath and clench your fists to stop yourself from frantically pressing the Close button before he can step into the elevator with you. The low hum of the elevator seems especially loud tonight, weakly filling the cold silence between the two of you. You step out on your floor, and still he stays silent. You fumble with your keys, the metal pieces clinking together sharply - extra noisy at 3:42am. The moment you unlock your door, back turned to him, Ohyul finally speaks up.

“Wait,” He starts, and you see his shadow shifting behind you, cast by the yellowing lights in the corridor. “I…"

He trails off, and you pause. Your front door is unlocked now but you make no move to push it open. You just stop moving with your hand frozen on the doorknob, almost like trying not to frighten an animal off, waiting for him to say something - anything, even if it's to get angry with you for what you said at the table.

The city is asleep at 3:43am, there's no traffic and no neighbours to fill the silence and so the pause stretches for a long, long time. You watch his shadow fidget uncomfortably and you wait for him just like you've done the past few weeks, forcing your patience to hold out just a little bit more. He sighs heavily, and seems physically unable to get his words out.

He finally says “… it's nothing,” and your patience, strung thin for weeks, just snaps.

You don't bother saying anything, you just kick your shoes off and push your door open. You hear him calling out behind you, almost begging for you to “wait, please…!” but you're done with waiting. You step into your apartment and leave him at your doorstep, closing the door in his face. You see that same flash of hurt in his eyes again, but you tell yourself you don't care anymore. You lock your apartment door, taking extra care to make sure he hears the key turning in the lock and immediately get into the shower.

You tell yourself that he can stand outside for as long as he wants. You tell yourself that you don't care if he never speaks to you ever again. You repeat this to yourself in the shower and you tell yourself that you're just keeping track of the time when you check you phone afterwards. You tell yourself that you're just checking that you locked your door properly as you look through the peephole to your empty corridor.

You finally crawl into bed at 4:22am.

Your phone glows in the darkness with a notification and you blink at it when you bring it up to your face. Its the first message you've gotten from him in three weeks that wasn't from the company group chat, and apparently it's easier for him to say things over text - because its strangely vulnerable. You stare at it for two long minutes before letting the phone fall onto the mattress, losing it in the blanket as you roll over with a soft exhale.

You don't respond.

That day never leaves your mind, and your once solid resolve to maintain no-contact is crumbling. You find yourself re-reading the last two messages he sent, and you've drafted and deleted a dozen different responses to it. You ended up sending zero.

To distract yourself from calling him impulsively on a tuesday night, you open up your company files and sort through them. You successfully sort through 3 big files before your fingers are itching to key in [email protected] in the email search bar. Your hands act on their own accord and got as far as “kwonohyul@pro-” before you manage to slam your laptop shut. You stand up, desperately looking for something else to occupy yourself and you find… nothing.

You check the time on your phone - it's 2am exactly.

The exhaustion that had been slowly seeping into your bones over the past hour suddenly opens its floodgates and you find yourself on the floor of your bedroom, motionless. Even under this spell of weariness, you still open Ohyul’s chatroom to reread his text again.

You turn your head to the large analogue clock on your wall. The desk lamp on the other side of the room bathes the clock in a soft glow, giving it an almost dreamlike quality. The clock hands sitting perfectly at 2:00 seem to taunt you. Every single time you have felt the urge to reach out to him again, its always 2am.

Just a month ago, you would have been on videocall with Ohyul at this time, talking about nothing and everything until the sun rose. His favourite time to talk was when the world was asleep and it was just you and him until the light of sunrise hit his face and he was reduced to a sleepy, mumbling mess - work be damned. Even then, you two never ran out of things to say.

You met him when you started working for the music label as their first administrator half a year ago, when they were just getting enough recognition that they needed a bigger staff.

You were so nervous about starting at the job that you couldn't remember everyone's names, only vaguely noting the 4 producers - but during the staff lunch they pulled together to welcome you to the team, you vividly remember that one producer guy with a cute toothy smile. That guy - you later find out is “Kwon Ohyul, lead producer,” - had a rather stoic expression most of the time, but you noticed that he would press the long sleeves of his shirt to his lips when you spoke. You grew ever so slightly self conscious but by the end of that lunch, he had forgotten about it and he was looking down at his coffee and smiling to himself every time you made eye contact with him.

Your job was great for your introverted self, where you and your colleagues would communicate via email and messages. Technically speaking, nobody had to actually speak to you at work for you to do your job effectively - but they did, of course, because everyone was so friendly. The nature of your role allowed you to work from home for 2 out of 5 weekdays, and you took full advantage of it.

However, Kwon Ohyul made it a point to personally approach you at your desk to ask for client details and documents, even after you told him that he could have sent an email. He would offer the same smile he hid behind his sleeves at your first lunch, and say, “I don't mind it, do you?” and you would always shake your head, smiling in return.

You didn't know much about music production at all, much preferring to work on the logistics of the company - but Lead Producer Kwon Ohyul made a habit of inviting you into his studio to listen to his various demos. It was definitely not the norm, because Ryul, Woojin and Louis didn't invite other people into their studios. He insisted that he needed your ‘fresh perspective’ and someone who would listen to his works as a whole without nitpicking on the individual components, and who were you to dispute the lead producer? Besides… you didn't mind spending extra time with the extra good-looking guy - so you let yourself get pulled into his dimly lit studio again and again.

He made adjustments in his work from your shy comments, and he convinced you to record a few lines for his demos, claiming that “a female voice will help the client see the vision..!” and that it would also make your job easier. You made a show of reluctantly obliging, perched on the corner of his desk, but would always give in anyway. He would take you out for meals afterwards as thanks, and over time it just turned into eating together just because - and you liked it. You liked him.

You were in charge of the paperwork, but he incorporated you into his art, his world, his life.

You and Ohyul started dating three months after your started your job at the music label - keeping it a secret from your colleagues because god forbid the HR intern catch you.

You called him ‘Yul’ in private - whispers in his studio, over late night calls and under your covers.

The relationship got so intense very quickly. Ohyul was so, so intense. He needed you like he needed oxygen to breathe - he was greedy and possessive over you all the time and he wouldn't let up. It was obvious that he wanted you so badly, and you wanted to give it all to him but it never seemed like enough. He would get jealous and upset that you had any friends, let alone any guy friends. He questioned you when you were out with your friends and he was just so… distrustful.

He grabbed your wrist instead of holding your hand and he kissed you like he wanted to eat you alive - like he was showing the world you belonged to him, instead of doing it to show he loved you. And yet, he managed to be so closed-off. You willingly let him know you, but every bit of information about him you had to painstakingly extract. The strange dissonance between wanting you so much, yet not wanting you to know him - you gave too much and got so little in return.

It scared you.

Too much, too soon, and not in the way you needed. You wanted a steady, tender presence in your life, not this all-consuming push and pull of obsession. So, as much as you wanted him, you had to take a step back.

The promised week turned into a fortnight, then a month - and Ohyul was struggling.

He would message you constantly, saying “i miss u” and ask to meet but all the encounters were empty again and again. You could tell that he had so much to say, but he couldn't find the damn words and you decided that it wasn't your problem anymore. So you stopped bothering.

The last time he tried was 3 weeks before the company dinner, where he showed up to your doorstep with your favourite milk tea order in his hand.

He had messaged you the night before, obviously drunk and out of it.

You'd read and reread his texts as you sat on your sofa, legs curled up underneath you. It felt like a twisted parallel to the romance movie you'd just put on and you wanted to scream. You turned the TV off and went to sleep, mind racing.

Then he apologised the next day, as if this wasn't the only time he had come close to being open about his feelings in the months you knew him.

He materialised on your doorstep in an oversized navy sweater, with sleeves pulled up to his elbow and a white button-up peeking out at his collar and hem - he looked good. Ohyul knocked on your door in 20 second intervals and you quietly watched him through your peephole, clutching your phone that lit up intermittently with notifications from him.

You wanted to let him in so badly, but he hadn't changed and he wasn't going to love you the way you needed him to. It was only going to hurt more to give him another chance just for him to shut down again.

It's over, you think to yourself.

By the fifth text, you had closed your eyes and leaned on the smooth wood of your door, slowly crumpling to the ground. You ended up sitting on your own scratchy ‘Welcome’ mat, feeling his knocks get softer and less certain against your back as you stared silently at the chipped edge of your coffee table - forcing your twitching fingers to stay put. Your phone laid face down next to you, still open to Ohyul’s chatroom.

You did not open your door that day, and you walked out the following afternoon to a cup of milk tea next to your shoes, the melted ice forming a separated layer atop the warmed drink.

He stopped trying after that, and the three weeks of silence were impossibly loud. It was amplified by your loneliness at work - you didn't realise how isolating the job was without his in-person visits and the invitations to his studio. He would simply email you about work and ask you things in the company groupchat, never anything personal anymore. You felt so…. alone.

You thought he had moved on - or at least that he was trying to - until that damned company dinner.

A week after the dinner, he sends a text.

You're at home, on one of your remote working days, dressed in a loose pajama set when you read it. After all that silence, he suddenly wants you in his studio? You begrudgingly tell him to get Ryul instead, but he replies immediately to refuse. He wants you. You pause and consider your options.

He's technically higher up in the working hierachy than you are, but its such a small and close-knit company that nobody pulls rank. You both know it, so you know he's asking you because Yul wants you there, not Kwon Ohyul, Lead Producer.

And… he said “please”, which is something you have a soft spot for. Combining this with his typo of “need u” and fully saying he wanted you to be there over Ryul… you hop in the shower after careful deliberation.

You enter the building at 7:31pm, and its empty. Everyone has gone home for the day, so the lights and AC are turned off. You turn a corner to enter a long hallway that branches off into the separate offices and in the darkness, you can see a soft blue glow through the frosted glass of the last door - Ohyul’s studio.

You hesitate for a fraction of a second - maybe this was a mistake - but you keep walking because of the little bubble of hope in your chest that this could work out. That same tiny flame that couldn't be extinguished even when you chose to stop responding to him.

You push open the door to his studio and the freezing air inside rushes out to greet you first, followed by a faint scent of lavender.

You freeze, door open a few inches wide, because you mentioned that you liked lavender the second time you entered his studio and he swapped out his preferred sandalwood spray to a lavender one by the next time you walked in. Apparently, he still kept his studio smelling of lavender even after he stopped inviting you over and stopped reaching out weeks ago. The small bell hanging on the inside tinkles.

The door gets pulled open from the other side, and Ohyul stands in front of you. He's draped in a well worn black long sleeved top, the loose neckline exposing his collarbones and the sleeves covering the palm of his hands. His tousled hair falls over his dark lashes and he looks like… a mess.

“You came,” he says, looking somewhat stunned and blinking down at you.

“You called,” you return quietly, dropping your gaze to his collarbones because the way he's looking at you is so intense you can't maintain eye contact.

You watch his chest rise and fall with a quick breath before he steps back and motions for you to come inside.

You step into that familiar studio, the LED lights washing the room in a light blue glow. Everything is just how you remember it - an organised mess. A giant monitor screen showing the latest project, and the scattered pages and notebooks strewn on the desk in front of it. You can tell he's stressed because its a little extra messy, and so is he.

“Sorry about the mess.” he says, gesturing over his table. “You know how I am with deadlines.”

You nod, lips pressed together because you do know how he is with deadlines and you also know how he is with everything else and its almost painful how distant you two are now. You're also well aware of every deadline on all current projects and none of them are coming in the next 2 weeks, but you let it slide.

You turn to look at the bright monitor questioningly, then back at him again - wordlessly prompting him to address the reason he asked you to come here.

“Oh, right. I wanted you to listen to this demo I've been working on.” He rushes, turning towards the screen and pushing a stray notebook aside to maneuver his mouse.

He clicks into an untitled project and the program loads on the screen, a jumble of incomprehensible colourful dashes against a grey background. He hands you his headphones, cord connected to his speakers - you take 2 steps forward so the cable doesnt get yanked out, and you end up right by the edge of the table, where you used to sit. You remain standing because even though the studio looks the same, everything has changed.

You place the headphones on your head and Ohyul presses play.

The instruments echo in your head, blending to form an almost ethereal sound. It's bass and… something else you can't identify, but the melancholy is so different from anything you've heard from him you can't stop yourself from gasping softly. Ohyul’s voice is immediately recognisable to you, and he's softly singing one line over and over - I can never let you go, go, go…

Theres a gap in the vocals and the beat comes in, heavy in your ears. The bass is a steady presence in the background, and you nod your head, following the beat. Your eyes fixate on a small bundle of dried lavender on top of one of the speakers, still resting where you placed it all those months ago. Then…

So where you at when I need you most?

We should probably raise a toast

for the times that you never called me,

You're stunned, turning to look at him, your eyes immediately searching for his. The familiar line sung in his voice, repeating from your stupid toast a week ago. You lose track of the lyrics now, watching his face - he'd looked away immediately when you turned, eyes downcast and guilty.

You decide to ask about it later and just listen first.

Tell me this ain't right,

this ain't right, no, no

His voice is so… familiar in the headphones and your chest aches more than you'd like to admit. The music echoes relentlessly in your hollow chest.

It's 2 a.m, you and I

used to talk until the morning

It's day and night, hurry now

Baby, let's just take it slowly today

I don't wanna miss out on much today

I don't wanna live like this all day

Take my hand and don't you run away, away

I'll be on your way

His voice stops and the individual instruments trail off at different times - you keep the headphones on until its completely silent. You realise the lyrics reflect your own feelings over the past few weeks and you exhale, caught between a sigh and an exasperated laugh. The universe is so cruel for doing this to you.

You slowly pry the headphones off your ears and set it on the table, keeping your eyes on the glowing monitor but you're not looking at the program. You stare at the very faint reflection of Ohyul on the screen, where he's not staring at you expectantly for feedback as he usually would be. He actually seems fixated on the ground near his feet, almost afraid to look at you. You try and push aside your feelings to form objective feedback, but it suddenly hits you. His unusual behaviour… he's not actually asking for your opinion.

He's trying to tell you something.

“Can I see the lyrics?” You ask tentatively to his bowed head.

He hands you a battered spiral notebook, already open to the written lyrics of this song. The lyrics disregarded the lines on the pages completely, and you can see a few ink splotches and deep divots in the paper where he presumably scrawled the words with force.

You read the lyrics you just heard, deciphering the scribbles and overlapping words slowly. You note some lines stolen from your words, your conversations and even your thoughts and you don't know what to make of it.

You exhale again, loud in the quiet studio.

“… So?” He finally speaks up, raising his head halfway to look at you through his lashes.

“Its… good,” You say carefully.

The air is thick with a thousand unsaid things - he knows that you know, and you know that because he's looking at you with timid anticipation in his eyes and he's waiting for you to acknowledge it.

“So… what is this about? The lyrics, I mean.” You finally speak again, feigning ignorance to confirm your theory. “What client is this for?”

“It's not for a client. I just had to… get this off my chest.” He says.

“But the lyrics - what do they mean?” You press further, giving him yet another chance to just talk.

Ohyul tilts his head up to look at you properly now, a myriad of colours cast on his face from the bright monitor screen and the ambient blue lights. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but his eyes seem to shine brighter as he looks into yours - more open, more honest.

“You know what this is about.” He says. Its a firm statement, and it sends a bright spark of anger down your spine.

If he had so much to say, why didn't he just tell you? The whole facade of pretending he needed your opinion on a project was so… unnecessary. His refusal to elaborate after asking you to be here just ticked you off more.

“This what you called me here for? To listen to a… confession?” You ask, tossing the notebook back onto his table where the force sent a few loose pages flying off the table. The noise was sudden and loud in the quiet room, and he flinches slightly.

“This is a new low for you, Ohyul.” You continue, anger lacing your voice now. You stare at him, your sharp gaze boring into his wide eyes.

“Wait, it's not-” He starts, brows furrowed, but you cut him off.

“Using work to bait me into coming here? Did you think you were clever?”

“It's not like that, I just can't… express myself properly.” He says, sounding like he's forcing the words out.

“I know.” You say, voice flat. “That's why we won't work together.”

Your matter-of-fact tone slices through the air and your words ring in the silence. His eyelids flutter and his gaze drops to the ground again, shoulders curling inwards as he runs a hand through his hair. You hear him sigh, the exhale long and defeated.

You mentally give him five seconds to reply before you walk away.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

“You won't talk to me, you won't text me back, you won't answer your door…” He says quietly. “I just needed you to hear this.”

He's still looking at the ground, twisting his fingers in his lap. A strange feeling fills your chest and it takes you a second to identify it - it's not pain, or sadness, or even anger anymore. You feel… guilty. This catches you off guard and you don't know what to do, and your only instinct is to run.

“… I have to go.”

You mechanically turn your body to the door, away from the lavender scented studio, away from that demo, away from Kwon Ohyul. Your mind is racing a million miles an hour and you barely register your legs moving to take you away from this mess, your fingers numb.

Your hand is on the handle, already pulling the door open and your brain is buzzing too loudly now to notice Ohyul taking a big step forward but you're snapped out of it when a large hand circles around your wrist.

You stop, arm frozen against the door and your mind suddenly quiet.

“At least let me explain while I have you here.” He whispers, the vulnerability so apparent in his voice that you have to turn back around and see it for yourself.

He looks like a kicked puppy, eyes big and sad as he looks at you.

“I… have a hard time expressing myself and I know that it's why we couldn't work.” He begins, his voice wavering as he speaks. “It's really uncomfortable for me to say things out loud and it feels like… like I'm exposing myself in a really bad way.

“Even though I know it's normal to tell you things, I just get so… I don't know. It feels like my throat closes up and I don't know what to say.”

His hand falls off your wrist and he tries to look into your eyes but he ends up looking down again, his fingers feverishly twisting the hem of his shirt. You watch him struggle to speak his mind and the effort it takes him only annoys you more. Someone who has to work this hard to be open wasn't someone you needed.

“But I can try. I can try for you.” He says softly - almost timidly.

Your chest tightens, and you suck in a breath.

“Don't pretend to be someone you're not.” You say eventually, forcing your voice to be steady.

“I won't be. I'm just…” He trails off, and he obviously can't think of anything better to say so you nod.

“Yeah, that's what I thought. It's fine.”

“I don't- It's not fine, and I know you're lying to-”

“I'm lying? You're lying to yourself right now but I'm the liar?” You spit back, mocking and sarcastic and cutting. A small voice in your head says that he's right - you are a liar, and it's not fine - but you push it away to make space for that terrible feeling bubbling up in your chest. Telling him how you feel seems pathetic now, so you just let the fury wash over you.

“No, that's not what I meant.” He says, desperate words spilling from his lips. “It's just that I don't think you're okay with this… situation. You pretend you're fine but I haven't seen you smile in weeks, and every time I see you in the office you just look so hollow.

“You don't respond to me and you don't even look at me anymore, but it's obviously affecting you so please, just tell me what's wrong so I can fix it. If you want me to keep begging for you to come back, I will. If you want me to leave you the fuck alone, I will - but just tell me what you want because I hate this silence.”

You stare coldly at him, his face finally warm and open and pleading - and you slowly realise that the roles have switched within this meeting.

You've become the one with impenetrable walls around yourself and Ohyul is the one trying to bridge the gap. You'd let the anger and spite consume you. This realisation feels like a physical hit square to your chest, and your lips part slightly in a soft exhale. Fuck.

You're doing what you were punishing Ohyul for.

A heavy dread creeps up your chest, your fingers going cold as you stand in the silence and you tear your gaze away, eyes darting around the room as you slowly step backwards. Your hand braces behind your back and fumbles at the door handle before you turn around to yank the door open. The tiny bell tinkles on its ribbon, and the sound fades as you walk away from the studio, eyes stinging.

Ohyul doesn't say anything, doesn't chase after you, doesn't stop you again this time.

Tears fall from your eyes for the first time in weeks before you even get to the glass double doors, blurring your vision. Head pounding, you furiously swipe the salty droplets away with the back of your hands but they don't stop - the twenty minutes it takes for you to walk home is spent crying into your hands, ragged breathing almost painful against the tightness in your chest.

Maybe you were wrong.

You don't know what to do, so you do nothing. You go through the motions of work and life, eyes glazed over and your mind racing all the time. You’re so preoccupied you spill a cup of coffee in the office one day, staining the carpet near your feet - a glaring reminder of the limbo you’re trapped in.

You fucked up and you knew it, but you just didn't know what to tell him.

Four days later he sends you an audio file.

You're lying on your couch, doomscrolling your evening away after completing your work duties until you get his text. You feel the panic in your spine surging and you sit bolt upright, eyes wide.

Did he send this to the wrong person? Maybe it was intended for the other producers, but you were curious. You wouldn't admit it - even to yourself - but the demo he showed you has been stuck in your head. The melody, his voice, the lyrics.

Against your better judgement, you click into the file.

I can never let you go, go, go

I can never let you go, go, go

It's that same song, but the file is a little over three minutes long… he finished it?

The song washes over you again, strangely soothing. The knot in the pit of your stomach loosens as you hear his voice echoing in your mind, and you can’t help but adore the slight rasp in his lines.

You pick up on a few lines as you slump back down on your couch, blankly staring up at the ceiling.

We should probably raise a toast

For the times that you never called me

Tell me this ain’t right,

this ain’t right, no, no

I don’t want to let things slip away one by one, I say

It’s 2am, you and I,

Used to talk until the morning.

You said that I’m the only one that you need

But why did you go?

I know you hate me,

but I always try

Words stolen from your toast, his texts, and his thoughts that reflected yours even when you two weren’t talking. You throw a hand over your face, screwing your eyes shut and sighing loudly.

Then the music stops, and his voice rings out in the void.

You say it’s fine, but I know you’re lying.

I hope this isn’t the end,

Your last conversation. You open your eyes again, clutching your phone to your chest as the last verse plays out. In the silence after the song ends, you can’t stop your mind from racing. He must have made this when you started ignoring him - the lyrics were a tapestry of the past month, dictating your interactions and his feelings in every line. Fuck.

The whole song is about you.

The melancholy in the instrumentals, the pain in his voice… all your doing.

The guilt burns in your stomach now, and a sickleningly familiar scene plays out again - you, staring at his text on your phone, not knowing how to respond. You almost don’t reply at all, your finger already on the power button of your phone when he sends another text.

You stare at his message, reading and rereading them over and over until you can feel a headache growing from the back of your head from the blood pounding through your body. Your numb fingers find the audio file again, and you keep the song on loop as you get off the couch to do anything to distract yourself.

But those few words are the tipping point for you, and you finally decide to reply when you’re halfway through dusting the top of your shelves.

You answer simply: “u will try?”

Even though you took nearly two hours to reply, his text back was instant.

You're caught off guard by this request, and you scramble to decide if you're ready or not.

Were you ready to face him? After the fallout, after the silence, after that incident in his studio…? You want to see him - of course you do - but you needed at least one day of mental preparation. However… to tell him “No” felt like the opposite of progression.

You sway in your kitchen, apprehension rooting you to the cold tiles for six whole minutes.

Then a knock sounds from your door.

You shuffle towards it, dropping your phone on the coffee table on the way, still looping his song. Mindlessly you pull the door open, expecting another online purchase to materialise on your doorstep but it's not even close.

At 9:53pm, you come face to face with Kwon Ohyul is standing on your doorstep.

Your eyes fly wide open in shock, lost for words at the person before you - like a deer caught in headlights. His face is flushed pink in the dim corridor lighting and he's out of breath, his chest rising and falling quickly. He quickly composes himself, his shoes scuffling on your doorstep as he pulls himself together.

“I know you didn't say if I could come see you or not, but I just…” He swallows, his words punctuated by his breathing. “… I just wanted to… uh… promise you.”

He hesitantly holds up his pinky finger.

A pinky promise.

It's so absurd after the weeks of tension and silent fighting and its so childish you almost laugh. But you don't, and instead your eyes flicker between his hand and his face, looking for any trace of humour but there's none.

He's completely serious, and you're so endeared by this you can't suppress the small smile that curves on your lips, and instinctively raise your own hand to slowly hook your pinky in his.

“Okay. You promise.” You say, pressing your lips together so you don't start grinning like an idiot.

Despite your mild reaction, he exhales and tightens his hold on your pinky, breaking out into that big smile of his.

“Yes, I promise.” He affirms, and you realise you haven't seen him smile so brightly in weeks, open and warm and sincere, and now you're smiling too. You let yourself feel everything now - how much you've really missed him and having him next to you. Everything feels different now, in a good way. Softer, warmer - less possessive and more gentle.

You look down at your intertwined pinkies between you two, and you suddenly feel the need to say something for yourself.

“I'm sorry for the way I acted the other day. I didn't mean what I said.” You blurt out, chewing on your bottom lip. “I was being really defensive.”

He shakes his head, still smiling.

“It’s okay, I was kinda wrong for suddenly springing all of that on you anyway.” He says, and you both laugh softly.

“Actually, how did you get here so quicky? Were you… nearby?” You ask, tilting your head to the side.

“Oh I was uh… at the studio when you replied me.” He says, slightly sheepishly.

You pause.

“The office is a twenty minute walk from here. How did you…?”

“Yeah, well… I ran…” He mumbles, his other hand scratching the back of his neck and you watch him flush a deeper pink. So that’s why he was so out of breath…

He clears his throat unnaturally loud.

“Anyway… I guess I’ll get going. See you at the meeting tomorrow.” He says, almost theatrically. You almost nod along with him before realising that you don’t want him to go yet. So he loosens his grip on your pinky and turns to leave, but you don’t let go.

He pauses at the first sign of resistance and turns to look at you, and wow, maybe he really has changed because you’ve never seen his eyes be so unguarded - wide and hopeful and questioning and damn near sparkling. And maybe it’s just the lights hitting him at this angle, but the flush hasn’t yet left his face and his lips are softly parted and he looks so pretty with his messy hair falling over his eyes, your brain short-circuits and you end up just staring at him for a few seconds.

“… Have you eaten?” You finally manage to say.

“Oh, no I haven’t. I was gonna cook some noo-”

“I have ramen. It’s the one you like. You left it here a few months ago and I… don’t like that flavour… so…” You say quickly, trailing off somewhat awkwardly, hoping he picks up on your offer.

His face lights up with another big smile, eyes creasing and he just nods at you.

You step backwards, pulling him into your apartment by your interlocked pinkies. He has to stop to frantically kick his shoes off, and the both of you giggle breathlessly as he nearly trips doing it.

He trails behind you as you lead him to the kitchen and you hear him breathe out a laugh when he spots your phone on the table, still playing his song.

notes!

the lngshot brainrot really got me and i had to write a fic about this song. im not the best at writing, so be nice to me :)

do not feed my work into ai!

𐙚˚ ───── QUALITY TIME

SILENCE or loud, it doesn't matter how the hangout flows. he just needs to be in your prescene at all times. spending time with you one - on - one feels like an award that he doesn't deserve. he's reserved to himself at most times, but he's constantly asking about your whereabouts just so he can come see you even if it's just for five minutes. he hates sulking away from your prescene.

he doesn't care what or where the hangout falls in, the only thing that matter to him is that he's with you. being the person who gets to see you in your worse states, happiest states, and even your goofy states makes him feel appreciated enough. he doesn't think that he's never seen a certain side of you, as he spends too much time with you for you to be able to hide it.

even during his busy days, he needs you by his side. recording in the studio, you're sitting on the couch next to him. one night he's staying up late, figuring out lyrics, you're like a cat that watches him from his side. its all silent, but the whole concept of it matters.

the main thing he hates though is when other people get involved. group hangouts — sure, just be ready for him to pull you out of the group and spend the rest of your day with ryul instead. he loves his friends, he really does, but he rather spend that quality time with the love of his life.

he doesn't get needy for you when it comes to group activities, but it really does push him. he wants all of your time spent with him and him only. he doesn't consider it pure quality time if it's not individually with you.

𐙚˚ ───── PHYSICAL TOUCH

RYUL is more so on showing his love through touch; hugs, caressing your cheek, cuddling, just being constantly glued to you — those are his addictions, and the list could go on.

he isn't very affectionate in public as much as he in private, hense why he enjoys quality time with you so much. he gets to show his love to you at any time given to him, which happens to be almost all the time. he can't go one second without atleast attaching a hand to somewhere on your body, even if it's just resting lazily out of habit.

his hands need to be on you, and not a way to show that he's in control or possessive over you — just a gesture that he relies on, otherwise he's not fulfilled. his hand casually rests on your thigh whenever you're sitting next to him around people, as he casually scrolls through his phone with the other. or he'll have an arm draped around your shoulders, pulling you into his side. but that's all he would do in public.

in private it's worse. he can't help but hug you at any given moment. right when you're off the wake, he's latching himself onto your body, causing you to almost fall over mid process. he hugs you so tight, while resting his head in the crook of your neck — there's truely no escape from there.

his goal is to never let you free, never let go of him, so he needs to remind you what his favorite thing is. your lips. when he kisses you, he puts deep emotion into it, his real love. fast or slow, it's all with love rather than want and need. it's never too much, he's never aggressive, he's not too fond of it as he soley compares it as attraction. like you don't want to take your time with your lover rather than being passionate about them.

his hands are also not harsh, they lay soft on your body as he fears of hurting you. but they're tight, almost like he's scared of you letting go. they always end up on your waist no matter the timeframe, or position you're in. but most of the time, he wants to worship your body through touch during a moment like that. he moves his hands around you occasionally, not in the sexual sense. it varies from resting on your jawline, thigh, or neck, just know his hands will end up on all those spots regardless the duration of the kiss. he just wants to feel around you.

𐙚˚ ───── ACTS OF SERVICE

AGAIN, his actions speak louder than his words. he wants to take care of you at all times, making sure you're fed, well, and of course loved.

he's not the type to baby you when it comes to taking care of you, he fully believes that you're well capable in treating yourself with the bare minimum but there's time where he feels the need to do something so minimum just for you.

he goes out his way just to cook you a meal even if he's on a time crunch. small or big, good or bad; he poured his love into it and he hopes you can feel through it. he knows what you dislike and like the most when it comes to foods, even if you didn't tell him straight up, he's an observer. he never minds if it takes him awhile to make or if it's too expensive — that doesn't stop him, he's doing it with his own will.

he always insists on doing your hair after the shower. if you have a specific routine, he's doing every single step of it without any of help nor your say, he has it all written down in his mind just by watching you. he does no mistakes. he'd also willingly go out and buy your products when he realized that you're almost out of it.

he always complains that you never wear a jacket during the winter time, just because you want to feel pretty and the jacket somehow ruins it. he doesn't believe it though, you look pretty even in your "ugliest" so he doesn't understand where you come from. although he's a complainer, one little shiver and he's willingly taking whatever he has on and handing it towards you.

even if you try playing it off saying that you are not cold and it was just a random shiver attack, he doesn't care. you're cold and you need a jacket. then that's when he'll talk to you about wearing something warm during a cold season.

"winter isn't even the season where you get sexy. i don't get why you're wearing a tank top with a skirt."

"you don't get it."

𐙚˚ ───── RECEIVING GIFTS

GIFT – GIFTING isn't something he always does, though he always does it unintentionally rather than planned. he always find himself stuck around valentines day, your birthday, and even christmas — though they're all months apart and brings enough time to plan.

he knows you well, but he just believes that receiving gifts unintentionally is the right way to show love through gift giving.

he does it with sentimental matter, he wants to give you things that can provide happiness and show how much he cares for you just by a simple gift. he buys you things the that you talk about, things that you happen to collect, as well as hand make you some.

speaking of hand making gifts, that's always his go to. he loves creating mini boxes for you — the ones that dedicate to the memories you spent together; your weekly pinic dates you had during a random week in the summer, your sleepover nights, the ones with face masks, matching pjs, the baking nights. you have atleast a memory box of each lovingly event. he just wants you to cherish those moments as much as he does.

but there is times where he finds certain items that remind him of you in stores and that he will always buy it for you, even regardless of its price. like jewelry, that man buys you a promise ring atleast every month or so — claiming that he needs to remind you of his promises and how much he keeps them solidify.

he knows when you're craving something bad. he knows your not a candy person but when you never shut up about eating a specific candy and how much you miss it, he's making sure to buy multiple packs of the same candy the next time he sees you — and then eating some on his own of course.

or if you're upset about how much a lip gloss disappointed you because of the shade, raging that you should've bought the other shade you were debating on instead. best know, he knows what shade you're talking about, and he's going out of his way to buy that specific shade of lip gloss. did i mention he's an observer? of course he knows what you're talking about.

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