Chapter Text
You hadn’t stayed late in months—not since that night. The night you’d let the words spill like a confession, like a grenade rolled between his feet. "Sometimes I wish we could be more…"
And he’d just… turned away.
Not immediately. Not dramatically. Just a slow, quiet pivot—shoulders tensing, gaze dropping to the floor like your words were too heavy to hold. The silence that followed wasn’t the kind you could fill. It was a chasm. A choice. He didn’t say no. Didn’t say yes. Just… turned his back on you. On us.
Working with the other group helped. Throwing yourself into their music, their energy, their distance—it was a welcome distraction. But distractions don’t heal. They just pass the time. And no matter how loud the studio was with them, how bright their laughter, the ache stayed. A dull, relentless throb beneath your ribs.
You had to see him. Just once. Maybe then you could finally stitch yourself back together. Maybe then it would stop hurting - this constant ache beneath your ribs that even working with the new group couldn't soothe. The distraction had been welcome, the music loud enough to drown out... almost everything.
Almost.
Closure. That's what you told yourself as you stood outside his studio, hand hovering over the door. That's what this was.
But tonight, the ache pulls you back in a different way. The unfinished melody you'd been working on - the one that started months ago in this very studio - haunts you, its notes slipping through your fingers like sand no matter how hard you try to grasp them elsewhere. You tell yourself you're here for the music. Only the music.
The knob turns before you can knock.
The air leaves your lungs in one sharp exhale. There he is - Chan, silhouetted in the doorway, eyes wide like he's been waiting. Like he knew you'd come back to this place, to this song, to him.
"Couldn't stay away?" he asks, voice rough around the edges. There's no accusation in it. Just quiet understanding.
You hold up your phone where the half-finished track still lives. "The song wouldn't let me."
His lips quirk. "Just the song?"
The truth sits heavy on your tongue. You let it linger there, unspoken, as you step past him into the studio that still smells like home.
The music brought you here. But it was never just about the music.
The studio feels smaller now. Or maybe it’s just the weight of everything left unsaid that makes the air so thick you could choke on it.
Inside, the lights are dim, the equipment powered down.
You turned, and there he was. Chan, seated on the couch, his posture slumped but his eyes alert. Watching you with that deep, soulful gaze that had always seen too much. Tonight, those dark eyes held something new - a sadness that mirrored your own, a quiet desperation that made your very soul ache.
Your breath caught, sharp in your throat.
The studio air hummed with unsaid words as you stood frozen, your lower back pressing into the sharp edge of the mixing table. Your fingers curled around the arm of the chair beside you, knuckles whitening as if it could anchor you against the current pulling you toward him.
He sat slumped on the couch, those deep sad eyes tracking your every movement—the way your throat worked when you swallowed, the slight tremor in your hands. The space between you charged with months of silence.
Your breath caught when he finally spoke, his voice rough like gravel and velvet all at once. "I've been... wanting to talk."
The admission hovered between you, fragile as spun glass. You nodded, your grip tightening on the chair. Close enough to see the shadow of stubble along his jaw. Not close enough to remember how his warmth felt against your palms.
He leaned forward, elbows digging into his knees, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles paled. "I didn't say anything back then," he began, voice dropping to something barely above a whisper, "because I was scared." A humorless laugh escaped him. "Still am, maybe."
Your pulse roared in your ears, a frantic drumbeat against your ribs. The edge of the table bit into your back, the pain sharp and grounding.
His gaze lifted, and the raw honesty you found there stole the air from your lungs. "But not saying it..." His hands flexed, fingers lacing and unlacing. "Not saying it didn't make it go away."
"Then say it now," you whispered, the words slipping out before you could catch them.
A muscle jumped in his jaw. When he spoke, the words came out razor-edged. "You left."
The accusation landed like a slap. Your fingers slipped from the chair arm. "You didn't stop me."
His breath hitched. For a moment, all you heard was the hum of dormant equipment and the too-loud pounding of your own heart.
He stood abruptly, frustration radiating off him like heat. His fingers raked through his already disheveled hair. "You think I didn't try?" His voice cracked. "Every goddamn night, I—" He cut himself off, hands flexing at his sides like he wanted to reach for you. "You were already gone before you walked out that door."
The truth of it lodged in your throat. You had left—piece by piece, every time he turned away from your touch, every mumbled excuse about keeping things professional.
"You made it so easy to go," you whispered.
His eyes darkened. "And you made it impossible to follow."
The air between you sparked with all the words you'd swallowed, all the touches you'd denied yourselves. His gaze dropped to your lips.
Somewhere in the building, a door slammed. The sound jolted you both back to the present—to the three feet of charged space between you, to the mixing table still digging into your back.
His throat worked as he stepped closer, close enough that you could see the dim studio lights reflecting in his blown-wide pupils. "Tell me to stop," he murmured, hand hovering near your waist. "Tell me you don't feel this, and I'll walk away."
But your body betrayed your hesitation. You leaned in, breath caught in your throat. "I can't."
The admission shattered whatever remained of the distance between you. His palm hovered near your hip, trembling with restraint.
You closed the distance.
He didn't touch you right away. He let you come to him, let you decide—his breath catching when your forehead finally touched his chest. A shudder ran through him as his arms wrapped around you, folding you against him like he'd been holding space for this exact moment all along.
The dam broke. His hands fisted in the back of your shirt as he buried his face in your hair. "God, I missed you," he choked out, the words vibrating against your skin.
You could feel his heartbeat where your cheek pressed against his sternum—too fast, too loud, perfectly in time with yours. His warmth seeped into you, erasing months of cold silence. The scent of him—vanilla and something faintly floral—filled your lungs like oxygen after drowning.
When he finally tilted your chin up, his eyes were glassy. "Stay," he whispered. Not a question. A plea.
Then his lips brushed yours - tentative, questioning. The first touch was softer than you imagined, just the barest pressure before he pulled back to search your face. His hands framed your cheeks like you might vanish, thumbs trembling where they traced your cheekbones.
You saw the exact moment it hit him—what had just happened. His breath caught, pupils dilating until they nearly swallowed the warm brown of his irises. A kiss months in the making, born from every word swallowed and every step it took to close the space between you.
"Again," you breathed before your brain could catch up, fingers curling into his shirt.
The second kiss wasn't gentle. It was the spark catching fire—his mouth finding yours with certainty this time. One hand slid into your hair, the other pressed between your shoulder blades, pulling you into him until there was no space left. The headphone cord looped around his neck dug into yours, but the pain was grounding, a sweet reminder this was real.
When you finally pulled apart, his lips were kiss-swollen, breath ragged. He didn't let you move far, just rested his forehead against yours, warm and shaking.
You felt him shudder before he spoke.
“I'm sorry.” The words escaped on a breath, like they'd been clawed from his chest. “For turning away. For making you walk out that door. For every second I wasted being scared.”
His voice cracked on the last word. The sound carved through you, sharp and full of regret. You could feel the weight of all those lost months pressing into your skin as he clung to you.
You reached for his hands—still trembling—and laced your fingers through his. “We were both scared”, you whispered.
He shook his head, bringing your knuckles to his lips. “But you were brave first.” The words hung between you, raw and reverent. “Let me be brave now.”
You kissed him before he could say anything else. This time he met you with equal hunger, hands sliding down to grip your waist as you stepped forward, pushing him backward until his knees hit the couch.
"Brave now, are we?" you murmured against his mouth, feeling his huff of laughter more than hearing it.
Then you were falling—a tangle of limbs and muffled laughter as the couch cushions caught you both. He landed half beneath you, one hand cradling the back of your head while the other splayed across your lower back, holding you flush against him.
"Took you long enough," he breathed, eyes dancing with something brighter than fear, lighter than regret.
You sealed the words between his lips with another kiss, the last of the distance between you finally, irrevocably gone.
And this time, when you kissed, it wasn’t about reclaiming what was lost.
It was about everything still waiting to be built. Together.