Chapter Text
Han Jisung only sang when the room was dark.
It was not a rule he remembered creating. He had never consciously decided that his voice needed to be hidden, or that the things he wrote became less embarrassing once the lights were switched off. It had simply become easier over time.
Darkness asked fewer questions.
At two seventeen in the morning, the fourth floor of the residence hall had finally settled into silence.
The communal bathroom had stopped echoing with running water. The laughter that had drifted through the corridor earlier had disappeared behind closed doors. Somewhere several rooms away, a chair scraped briefly across the floor before everything became quiet again.
Inside room 417, Yang Jeongin appeared to be asleep. He lay across his narrow bed, one leg tangled in the blanket and an open history textbook resting facedown beside his pillow. His glasses sat precariously close to the edge of his desk, balanced on top of a stack of printed articles covered in neat yellow highlighting.
Jisung had already moved them farther from the edge twice.
He was currently sitting on the floor beneath his own desk with a thick blanket draped over his head and shoulders.
It was not an especially dignified arrangement.
It was, however, the closest thing their dorm room had to a recording booth.
The blanket trapped warmth around him until the air beneath it felt stale. It also held the faint smell of a fabric softener that belonged neither to Jisung nor Jeongin.
The oversized charcoal hoodie hanging from Jisung’s shoulders belonged to Kim Seungmin.
Seungmin insisted that Jisung had stolen it.
Jisung preferred to think of it as an indefinite loan that had not required prior discussion.
The hoodie was large even on Seungmin’s taller frame. On Jisung, the sleeves extended well beyond his fingertips, and the hem gathered around his thighs where he sat cross-legged on the carpet. The fabric fell loosely over his body, disguising the breadth of his shoulders and the sharp inward line of his waist beneath them.
He liked it that way.
Jisung spent enough time being looked at when he wanted to be. He preferred having the option to disappear when he did not.
His laptop rested on the floor in front of him. A microphone leaned against one knee inside a stand that had been repaired twice with black electrical tape. Several cables twisted around empty coffee cups and abandoned notebooks before disappearing into the audio interface beside his bed.
On the screen, the same eight measures had been looping for almost forty minutes.
Four bare piano chords.
A muted kick drum.
A bassline soft enough to be felt rather than clearly heard.
Jisung had spent most of the night adding new layers to the track, only to remove them again.
The strings had made it sound too sentimental. The guitar had made it feel rehearsed. The heavier percussion had given him too many places to hide.
What remained was sparse enough to make him uncomfortable.
Jisung pressed the spacebar and let the instrumental begin again.
He made it through the first two lines before stopping.
The recording sounded too controlled.
He deleted it.
The next attempt sounded pretty in a way that made him distrust it immediately.
He deleted that one too.
By the fifth attempt, his throat had begun to tighten from singing quietly enough not to wake Jeongin. By the eighth, he had started resenting the song for refusing to become what he wanted. By the tenth, Jisung had decided that anyone who described songwriting as therapeutic had never spent three hours listening to the sound of their own breathing between verses.
He stared at the waveform waiting on the screen.
Then he pressed record again.
This time, he did not watch the levels.
He lowered his eyes to the shadow of his hands beneath the blanket and allowed the words to come out without correcting them as they left him.
I leave before the daylight,
before you change your mind.
It’s easier to be wanted
when I never ask you why.
His voice roughened slightly on the last word.
Jisung’s finger moved towards the spacebar.
He stopped himself before pressing it.
The piano continued.
He swallowed, closed his eyes and sang the next verse.
I know how to make you notice.
I know how to make you stay.
I just never learned what happens
when there’s nothing left to chase.
The final note trembled.
It thinned gradually until it disappeared beneath the instrumental, leaving the unresolved chord suspended in the silence that followed.
Jisung remained completely still.
The microphone continued recording the faint hum of his laptop, the distant sound of plumbing inside the wall and his own uneven breathing beneath the blanket.
Then Jeongin spoke from the other side of the room.
“That was deeply depressing.”
Jisung startled so violently that the back of his head struck the underside of the desk.
A dull thud broke the quiet.
“Fuck.”
Jeongin shifted beneath his blanket. “Are you injured?”
“You were supposed to be asleep,” Jisung hissed, one hand pressed against the back of his head.
“I was asleep,” Jeongin replied. His voice was thick and slow with exhaustion. “Then somebody started singing about abandonment beneath a blanket three metres away from me.”
“It’s called acoustic treatment.”
“It’s called being strange at two in the morning.”
Jisung pushed the blanket back far enough to glare across the room.
Jeongin had barely moved. Only his eyes and the bridge of his nose were visible above the duvet, his dark hair flattened untidily against his forehead.
“You could have said something earlier,” Jisung complained.
“I wanted to know whether the song became happier.”
“And?”
“It did not.”
Jisung turned back towards the laptop. “It isn’t supposed to be happy.”
“That much was clear.”
He reached for the trackpad, intending to delete the recording before Jeongin could hear any more of it.
Jeongin’s voice stopped him.
“Keep that take.”
Jisung glanced over his shoulder. “I missed the last note.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“It went flat.”
“It sounded human.”
“That is significantly worse.”
Jeongin opened his eyes a little farther. “You say that every time a recording sounds like you actually meant the lyrics.”
“I always mean the lyrics.”
“No, you usually make them sound impressive enough that nobody notices what they mean.”
Jisung stared at him.
Jeongin did not look particularly triumphant. He simply looked tired.
That somehow made the observation worse.
“The song isn’t about me,” Jisung said.
Jeongin’s eyebrows lifted slightly above the edge of the blanket. “I didn’t say it was.”
“You were implying it.”
“I asked whether you meant the lyrics.”
“I write fictional narratives.”
“Of course you do.”
“I possess imagination.”
“You cried over a chord progression last week.”
Jisung’s mouth tightened. “It was an excellent chord progression.”
“I’m sure it was.”
The corner of Jeongin’s mouth moved.
Jisung narrowed his eyes. “You’re very annoying for someone whose glasses I prevented from falling onto the floor twice tonight.”
“Thank you for your service.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jeongin closed his eyes again, apparently deciding that the conversation was over.
Jisung looked back at the waveform on his laptop.
There was a breath in the second verse that had come too late. The consonants in the last line were not as clean as they should have been. His voice had thinned near the end in a way that revealed exactly where he had stopped thinking about technique.
He disliked all of it.
Which usually meant the recording was worth keeping.
Jisung saved the file.
From across the room, Jeongin said, “I can hear you clicking.”
“Go to sleep.”
“Upload it before you listen again and ruin it.”
Jisung pulled the blanket completely off his head.
Cool air touched the sweat along his forehead. His hair had been flattened against one side of his head and pushed into a strange peak on the other, but there was nobody awake enough to judge him properly.
He dragged the vocal take into the project and adjusted the levels with small, practised movements.
“Why do you assume I’ll ruin it?” Jisung asked.
“Because last month you recorded a song I liked, listened to it thirty-seven times and removed every part that sounded interesting.”
“It was overproduced.”
“It became instrumental elevator music.”
“It was atmospheric.”
“It sounded like something a dentist would play.”
Jisung turned around to glare at him again, but Jeongin’s eyes remained closed.
“You have no appreciation for subtlety,” Jisung said.
“I study history. I appreciate things that survive.”
Jisung reluctantly turned back to the laptop.
He listened through the recording once.
Only once.
A second listen would become three. Three would become ten. By sunrise, he would have replaced the vulnerable take with something technically flawless and emotionally empty.
He exported the track instead.
While the file rendered, Jisung opened SoundCloud.
The account had no connection to his real name.
There was no photograph of his face, no university listed and no link to the social media profiles where he posted pictures from parties, complained about deadlines and uploaded videos of Changbin threatening to lock him out of the production studios.
The profile image was a blurred streetlight photographed through the rain-covered window of a late-night bus.
The username was beforedawn.
Jisung had chosen it during his first semester because every name he genuinely liked had already been taken. Later, when listeners began asking what it meant, he invented different explanations depending on his mood.
Sometimes it was a metaphor about hope arriving after darkness.
Sometimes it represented the strange honesty of sleepless nights.
Once, after drinking too much at a party, he told somebody it symbolised art existing within transitional spaces and felt deeply embarrassed about it the following morning.
The truth was far less impressive.
He had looked at the time, realised sunrise was approaching and typed the first phrase that entered his head.
The account contained sixteen songs.
Most had only a few hundred plays. Two had inexplicably passed several thousand. Strangers occasionally left comments beneath them, telling him that they had listened during long bus rides, difficult nights or mornings when getting out of bed had felt impossible.
They knew his voice.
They knew the things he could only admit through lyrics.
They did not know his face.
That made them safe.
Jisung clicked the upload button.
He titled the new track nothing left to chase.
His finger hovered over the final confirmation.
The song had sounded manageable while it existed only on his laptop. Now that he was preparing to let other people hear it, every imperfect breath felt like an accidental confession.
He nearly closed the page.
Jeongin’s voice drifted across the room again.
“Do it.”
Jisung frowned. “Are you psychic now?”
“No. You always stop breathing before you upload something.”
“I breathe perfectly normally.”
“You are currently holding your breath.”
Jisung exhaled through his nose.
Then he pressed the button.
The progress bar filled quickly.
No description.
No credits.
Nothing that could lead anyone back to Han Jisung, second-year music-production student, chronic procrastinator and person who had once convinced half the department that the studio printer was haunted because he did not want to admit he had broken it.
The track appeared at the top of the page.
Jisung closed the laptop before regret had enough time to settle.
“There,” he said quietly.
Jeongin made a sleepy sound of approval.
Jisung crawled out from beneath the desk and climbed into bed without removing Seungmin’s hoodie. The mattress dipped beneath him as he turned towards the wall, pulling his knees close and letting the heavy fabric gather around his body.
His phone illuminated beside his pillow.
There were thirty-four unread messages in the group chat.
Most of them had been sent by Felix.
felix: tomorrow!!!
felix: everyone is coming right
felix: hyunjin hates the halftime outfits and needs moral support
jeongin: he designed them
felix: yes and now he hates them
seungmin: That sounds like a personal problem.
felix: chan asked us to come :(
seungmin: You were already going.
felix: yes but now it is romantic
jisung: disgusting
felix: you’re awake!!
seungmin: Why is he awake?
jeongin: recording under his desk
jisung: stop reporting my activities
seungmin: Are you wearing my charcoal hoodie?
jisung: no
seungmin: Send a picture.
jisung: my camera is broken
seungmin: You uploaded a selfie three hours ago.
jisung: tragic timing
A new message from Changbin appeared beneath the others.
changbin: Jisung, your revised project is due at noon.
jisung: finished
changbin: Finished or submitted?
jisung: spiritually complete
changbin: Han Jisung.
jisung: goodnight everyone
Jisung locked his phone before Changbin could respond.
The room became dark again.
Several seconds later, his laptop produced a quiet notification from beneath the desk.
Someone had played the new song.
Jisung stared at the ceiling but did not reach for the screen.
He never checked who listened.
That was the point.
The people who heard him there were strangers. They could know every frightened, lonely part of him and still remain far enough away that none of it mattered.
Across the room, Jeongin’s breathing gradually became deeper.
Jisung pulled Seungmin’s sleeves over his hands and closed his eyes.
By morning, he would be somebody else again.
Morning arrived without mercy.
Jisung woke to sunlight pressing through the gap between the curtains and Jeongin standing over him with one hand wrapped around the strap of his satchel.
“You have eight minutes,” Jeongin said.
Jisung opened one eye.
The room looked offensively bright. His mouth was dry, his neck hurt from sleeping half-curled against the wall, and the charcoal sleeve covering his hand had left a crease across his cheek.
“Eight minutes until what?”
“Your class.”
Jisung closed his eye again. “That does not sound like my problem.”
“It becomes your problem when Chan tells Changbin you missed another workshop, and Changbin comes here to remove you from the bed himself.”
That possibility was realistic enough to make Jisung move.
He pushed himself upright and immediately regretted it when the room tilted slightly around him. Seungmin’s hoodie had twisted during the night, pulling snugly across his shoulders while the hem had ridden above his waist.
Jisung yanked it down before Jeongin could comment.
Jeongin noticed anyway.
“You slept in that again.”
“It’s comfortable.”
“It belongs to Seungmin.”
“That has never stopped it from being comfortable.”
“He asked for it back yesterday.”
“He asks for many unreasonable things.”
Jeongin watched as Jisung searched beneath the blankets for his phone. “Returning his belongings is unreasonable?”
“He has other hoodies.”
“None of them are that one.”
“Then he should learn not to form unhealthy emotional attachments to material possessions.”
Jisung found his phone beneath his pillow.
The time displayed at the top of the screen made him sit straighter.
“Why didn’t you wake me earlier?”
Jeongin’s expression remained calm. “I did. Three times.”
“You clearly lacked conviction.”
“The second time, you told me you had legally withdrawn from university.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“You also said Changbin could submit your assignment on your behalf because he loves you.”
“That part is true.”
Jeongin opened the door.
Jisung threw the blanket aside and stumbled out of bed. “Wait. Are you leaving?”
“I have a lecture.”
“So do I.”
“That sounds difficult.”
“You cannot abandon me at a time like this.”
Jeongin glanced deliberately at the clock on the wall. “You now have six minutes.”
Then he stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind him.
Jisung stared at it.
“Heartless,” he muttered.
He dressed with the efficiency of someone who had spent years waking later than circumstances permitted.
Yesterday’s black cargo trousers were still draped across the back of his chair. Jisung stepped into them, changed his shirt beneath the oversized hoodie without removing it, and shoved his laptop into a bag already crowded with cables, notebooks and three pens that almost certainly did not work.
He caught sight of himself in the mirror beside the wardrobe.
The pillow crease remained visible across his cheek. His hair had flattened on one side and risen at the back in a shape that could not reasonably be blamed on fashion.
For several seconds, he simply looked.
The softness left behind by sleep had not disappeared from his face yet. His eyes appeared larger without expression arranged around them, and his fuller lower lip was slightly swollen where he had bitten it during the night.
He looked tired.
More importantly, he looked like someone who had spent the early hours of the morning singing beneath a blanket because being heard by strangers felt safer than being understood by friends.
Jisung reached for a cap.
By the time he pulled the brim low over his forehead, the boy in the mirror had become easier to recognise.
He tilted his head.
Smiled.
The first attempt looked wrong.
The second was better.
Jisung lifted one eyebrow at his reflection and adjusted the mouth into something amused, as though the entire world had already made a joke and he was the only person clever enough to understand it.
There he was.
He slung the bag over one shoulder and left the room.
The corridor was busy now. Doors stood open while students moved between bathrooms and lectures, carrying coffee, half-eaten toast and the exhausted expressions of people who had made poor decisions the night before.
Jisung passed two students from the floor below.
One of them looked at the charcoal hoodie and smiled.
“Morning, Seungmin.”
Jisung did not slow down. “He wishes he looked this good in it.”
The student laughed.
That was all it took.
By the time Jisung reached the stairwell, the heaviness of the night had been folded away somewhere beneath the oversized fabric. His steps had become lighter. His shoulders were no longer curled inward. He descended two stairs at a time, apologised charmingly after nearly colliding with someone on the landing and accepted half a piece of toast from a first-year student whose name he had forgotten.
He remembered her major, though.
“Good luck with your presentation, architecture girl,” Jisung called as he continued down the stairs.
Her surprised smile followed him to the next floor.
Outside, the campus had already settled into its weekday rhythm.
Students crossed the courtyard in loose streams. Bicycles passed along the central path. Someone from a student organisation had positioned themselves beside the library and was attempting to hand flyers to people actively avoiding eye contact.
Jisung checked the time again.
He was going to be late regardless.
That meant there was no reason to arrive without coffee.
The queue at the campus kiosk extended nearly to the pavement. Jisung considered skipping it until the student working behind the counter saw him.
“Late again?” she asked when he reached the front.
Jisung placed one hand over his chest. “You recognise me.”
“You order the same thing four times a week.”
“I thought we had something special.”
“We do. You pay, and I make coffee.”
“That sounds transactional.”
“It is literally my job.”
Jisung leaned against the counter. “Could your job include making mine first?”
The student stared at the line behind him.
“Do you want everyone here to hate you?”
“They already resent my beauty. Coffee will not make a difference.”
A person waiting behind Jisung sighed loudly.
Jisung turned around.
The man wore a university athletics jacket, although Jisung could not identify the team. He was tall, broad through the chest and visibly unimpressed.
Jisung smiled at him.
“Good morning.”
“It was.”
“Ouch.”
The athlete’s expression shifted despite his effort to remain irritated.
Jisung noticed.
He always noticed.
He let his gaze rest on the man for exactly long enough to make the attention clear, then returned to the counter.
The student working there shook her head as she reached for a cup.
“You’re insufferable.”
“You say that, but you’re making my coffee.”
“You are still paying.”
Jisung placed his phone against the reader.
When the machine approved the transaction, he smiled at her as though they had negotiated something far more intimate.
“You’re an angel.”
“I hope Chan locks you out of the studio.”
“Cruelty does not suit you.”
Jisung accepted the cup and stepped aside.
As he passed the athlete, the man glanced down at the name printed across Jisung’s hoodie.
“Seungmin?”
Jisung looked back over his shoulder. “Only when I’m in trouble.”
The man laughed.
Jisung continued towards the music building without asking for his name.
He could have.
The invitation had been there.
He stored that information away without deciding whether he would use it later.
This part came easily.
A glance held for one second too long. A smile that suggested a private joke. A compliment delivered as though Jisung had only just noticed something worth admiring.
He liked flirting.
That was the part people often misunderstood when they tried to explain him to each other. They assumed every smile was calculated and every touch was a disguise for something sadder.
Sometimes it was.
Often, Jisung simply enjoyed being wanted.
He liked watching someone’s expression change when they realised his attention had chosen them. He liked the warm little rush of knowing he could walk into a room and alter its direction. He liked attraction when it remained uncomplicated, when nobody asked him to carry it beyond the moment in which it existed.
The skill had become useful long before he understood why.
By the time Jisung reached the music-production building, he was twelve minutes late and in an excellent mood.
The entrance smelled faintly of dust and overheated equipment. Music leaked through the rehearsal-room doors in disconnected fragments: a piano scale, several bars of guitar, a vocalist repeating the same line until the words lost meaning.
Jisung took the stairs instead of waiting for the lift.
He opened the studio door as quietly as possible.
The hinges betrayed him with a long metallic squeak.
Every person inside turned.
Bang Chan stood at the front of the room beside a projected waveform. He was not the lecturer, although the difference had become increasingly theoretical. As a final-year student completing an advanced departmental placement, Chan assisted with workshops, supervised studio hours and carried the exhausted authority of someone regularly expected to solve problems nobody else wanted.
He looked at Jisung.
Jisung looked back.
“Good morning,” Jisung said.
Chan glanced at the clock. “Is it?”
“Somewhere in the world.”
A few students laughed.
Chan did not.
Jisung adjusted the strap of his bag. “I brought coffee.”
“You did not bring enough for the class.”
“That would have been financially irresponsible.”
“You are twelve minutes late.”
“Eleven and a half.”
“Sit down, Jisung.”
The empty chair beside Changbin appeared less welcoming than usual.
Seo Changbin was a third-year production student, one of Chan’s closest friends and the unfortunate senior assigned to oversee Jisung’s current project. He sat with his arms folded across his broad chest, expression flat.
Jisung lowered himself into the chair.
Changbin’s eyes moved over him once.
“You slept in that hoodie.”
“That is an invasive accusation.”
“It has a pillow crease on the hood.”
Jisung reached behind himself and smoothed it uselessly. “It’s an intentional texture.”
“You’re wearing yesterday’s trousers.”
“They’re black. Time cannot affect them.”
Changbin’s gaze dropped to the coffee.
“You had time to buy that.”
“Hydration is important.”
“That is not water.”
“It contains water.”
From the front of the room, Chan cleared his throat.
Changbin faced forward again.
Jisung opened his laptop and attempted to look academically engaged.
A message appeared almost immediately.
seungmin: Why did someone send me a picture of you wearing my hoodie at the coffee kiosk?
Jisung glanced around the room before replying beneath the desk.
jisung: fame is exhausting
seungmin: Give it back.
jisung: you look so handsome today
seungmin: You have not seen me today.
jisung: i can feel it spiritually
seungmin: I hope Changbin fails you.
Jisung tilted his screen towards Changbin.
“Your boyfriend is threatening my education.”
Changbin read the message.
“He has my full support.”
“You’re supposed to be my senior.”
“I am. That is why I understand the educational value of consequences.”
Jisung looked wounded. “I thought you believed in me.”
“I believe you are capable of returning a hoodie.”
“That is unrelated to music.”
“It is related to basic morality.”
Chan stopped speaking again.
This time, he did not need to say Jisung’s name.
Jisung closed the chat window and offered him an innocent smile.
Chan waited until the smile faded before continuing.
The workshop focused on spatial layering. Jisung had read the materials at some point during the previous week, although he could no longer remember whether that had happened before or after two drinks at Felix’s dorm.
He understood the subject regardless.
That was another thing people disliked about him.
Jisung could arrive late, argue with the instructions and still hear exactly where a track had become too crowded. Music arranged itself naturally inside his head. He understood space through sound before he understood it through numbers or diagrams. When someone played him a mix, he could identify the unnecessary layer before they finished explaining why they had included it.
He also became bored quickly.
Twenty minutes into the workshop, Jisung had fixed an issue with his project, renamed three files and drawn a deeply unflattering portrait of Changbin in the margin of his notebook.
Changbin noticed when Jisung added exaggerated muscles to the arms.
“Why do I look like that?”
Jisung looked down at the drawing. “Like what?”
“My head is the size of a grape.”
“Perspective.”
“You drew six abdominal muscles through my shirt.”
“Artistic truth.”
Changbin reached for the notebook.
Jisung pulled it against his chest.
“You cannot censor me.”
“I’m going to destroy the evidence.”
“You don’t appreciate the arts.”
“You aren’t an artist.”
“Tell that to Hyunjin.”
“Hyunjin would hate this more than I do.”
“That sounds like jealousy.”
Changbin’s mouth opened.
Before he could respond, Chan called from the front, “Jisung, since you have so much free time, would you like to play your revised track?”
The amusement left Jisung’s face for less than a second.
Then he smiled.
“Absolutely.”
He connected his laptop to the studio system while Changbin watched him carefully.
The project had been completed for an assignment on contrasting vocal spaces. Jisung had built it around two voices that occupied opposite sides of the stereo field, never meeting until the final chorus.
Technically, the track was strong.
Jisung knew that.
The vocals were temporary. He had recorded them quickly one evening after the singer originally assigned to the project cancelled. They were clean enough to demonstrate the arrangement and buried deeply enough beneath the production that nobody needed to discuss them.
At least, that had been the intention.
The first beat entered through the studio speakers.
Conversation stopped.
Jisung leaned back in his chair, one ankle resting over the opposite knee. He held the coffee near his mouth without drinking it and looked at the waveform rather than the people listening around him.
The song unfolded slowly.
Synthesised percussion settled beneath a restrained bassline. The first vocal entered from the left, the second answering from the right. Both belonged to Jisung, altered slightly in tone and treatment.
By the final chorus, they moved towards the centre.
The effect worked exactly as planned.
When the track ended, silence remained for several seconds.
Jisung took a drink.
Chan looked at the project file on the screen. “The bridge is cleaner.”
“I know.”
“You removed the secondary synth.”
“I made a mature artistic decision.”
Changbin turned towards him. “You told me removing it would destroy the emotional architecture.”
“My vision evolved.”
“You argued for forty minutes.”
“Evolution can be painful.”
Another student laughed.
Chan’s attention remained on the waveform. “The vocals are yours.”
It was not phrased as a question.
Jisung’s fingers tightened slightly around the coffee cup.
The movement was hidden beneath the oversized sleeve.
“Temporary guide vocals,” he answered.
“They suit the track.”
“That is because I designed it around them.”
“You should keep them in the final version.”
Jisung smiled. “No.”
The answer came lightly.
Still, something in the room changed.
Chan looked at him properly.
He was kind enough not to make the moment obvious.
“Why not?” Chan asked.
Jisung lifted one shoulder. “Because I’m a producer.”
“You can be more than one thing.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
Several people smiled, accepting the joke as an answer.
Chan did not.
Neither did Changbin.
Jisung held Chan’s gaze for another second before widening his smile.
“I already have the voice of an angel and the face of a model,” he said. “Giving me a singing career too would be unfair to everyone else.”
The room laughed.
The attention broke.
Chan nodded and moved on to the technical feedback.
Jisung relaxed his grip around the cup.
Beside him, Changbin said nothing.
That was worse than being questioned.
The workshop continued until noon.
The moment Chan dismissed them, conversation filled the studio again. Students packed their equipment, compared schedules and began making plans for the evening.
Jisung was halfway through closing his laptop when a classmate stopped beside his chair.
Her name was Mina. She specialised in live audio and had kissed Jisung behind the performing-arts building during his first semester.
They had remained friends largely because neither of them had expected the kiss to become anything else.
“The vocals were good,” she told him.
Jisung looked up. “Only good?”
“Very good.”
“That’s better.”
Mina adjusted the strap of her bag. “You should perform at the department showcase.”
“I prefer protecting the public from excessive beauty.”
“You performed karaoke for three hours last month.”
“I was drunk.”
“You demanded an encore.”
“The audience needed me.”
Mina shook her head, smiling. “Are you going to the football game tonight?”
Jisung zipped his bag.
“Apparently.”
“The victory party too?”
“They haven’t won yet.”
“They will.”
“Is that confidence in the team or insider information?”
“My roommate is dating one of the players.”
Jisung stood.
The hoodie fell loosely around him again, concealing the abrupt narrowing of his torso beneath his shoulders. Mina’s eyes followed the movement before returning to his face.
Jisung noticed that too.
Her gaze was familiar enough that he could have responded without thinking.
Instead, he smiled and asked, “Will you be there?”
“Maybe.”
“That means yes.”
“It means maybe.”
“You have never been convincing when you lie to me.”
Mina’s expression warmed. “You don’t know when I’m lying.”
“I know everything about you.”
“You forgot my birthday.”
“That was an administrative error.”
“It was last week.”
“I was giving you space to process ageing.”
Mina laughed and pushed lightly at his arm before walking away.
Jisung watched her leave.
Changbin appeared beside him.
“You aren’t sleeping with her again.”
Jisung turned slowly. “That was an aggressive opening.”
“She has a girlfriend.”
“I know.”
“You were flirting.”
“I flirt with you.”
“No, you irritate me.”
“There is significant overlap.”
Changbin lifted Jisung’s bag from the floor and handed it to him.
“You’re coming to the game.”
Jisung accepted the bag. “Why is everyone so concerned with my evening?”
“Felix wants you there. Jeongin will be watching Hyunjin instead of the field, and Seungmin will complain the entire time.”
“That does sound entertaining.”
“Chan also asked us to come.”
Jisung made a face. “You’re all disgustingly devoted.”
Changbin’s expression softened in a way that made Jisung immediately suspicious.
“One day, you might understand.”
“People are devoted to me all the time.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Jisung knew.
He also knew Changbin was waiting to see whether he would acknowledge it.
Jisung slid the bag over his shoulder.
“You’re right,” he said solemnly. “Nobody has ever loved me enough to bring stadium food.”
Changbin’s softness vanished.
“I hope Seungmin takes the hoodie back in public.”
“There he is.”
Jisung grinned and walked towards the door before Changbin could catch him.
The corridor outside was crowded.
Someone called Jisung’s name from the opposite end. Another person raised a hand in greeting. Jisung responded to both without slowing down, his smile arriving easily now.
Nobody looking at him would have recognised the boy who had sat beneath a blanket several hours earlier, holding his breath before allowing strangers to hear his voice.
That boy belonged to the dark.
Daylight received somebody else entirely.
And Han Jisung had spent years making sure everyone preferred him.
Lee Minho disliked game days most in the hours before the game began.
Once he stepped onto the field, everything became simple.
There was the ball, the formation, the distance between himself and the nearest opening. There were rules he understood and decisions that needed to be made quickly enough that doubt had no time to interfere.
The hours leading up to it were less manageable.
People wished him luck as though he had forgotten there was a match. Teammates became louder to disguise their nerves. Coaches repeated instructions everyone had already memorised. Students who had never spoken to him discovered reasons to appear beside him in corridors, touching his arm and asking whether he was excited.
Minho was not excited.
He was prepared.
Those were different things.
At four in the afternoon, he sat at his desk in room 409 with one bare foot resting against the opposite knee and a calculus textbook open in front of him.
The dormitory outside had become progressively noisier as students prepared for the evening. Doors opened and closed. Music travelled through the walls. Somewhere nearby, somebody was chanting the university fight song badly enough that Minho briefly considered reporting them for psychological harassment.
Inside the room, everything remained orderly.
Minho’s side was cleaner than Chan’s, though that was largely because Chan considered every available surface a temporary storage space. A pair of headphones rested beside an unfinished cup of coffee on Chan’s desk. Several memory cards were scattered near his keyboard. A jacket Felix had forgotten three days earlier remained draped over the back of Chan’s chair despite Chan insisting it had been left there intentionally.
Minho did not believe him.
He turned a page in his textbook.
The problem in front of him concerned differential equations and population modelling. It was not especially difficult, but he had spent six minutes staring at the same line because someone outside kept shouting his jersey number.
“Twenty-five!”
Minho pressed the end of his pen against the paper.
The voice came again, louder this time.
“Lee Minho! Bring us a win tonight!”
He closed his eyes.
Across the room, Chan laughed without looking away from his laptop.
“They’re supporting you.”
“They’re obstructing my education.”
“You have already finished that problem.”
“I’m checking it.”
“You checked it twice.”
Minho looked over.
Chan sat sideways at his desk, one leg tucked beneath him while he organised photographs from the previous game. The screen displayed Minho halfway through a sprint, body angled forward, one hand protecting the ball against his ribs.
The photograph made him look more dramatic than the moment had felt.
“Why do you know how many times I checked it?” Minho asked.
“Because you tap the answer with your pen every time you finish.”
“I do not.”
Chan tapped his own desk three times in imitation.
Minho stared at him.
Chan smiled.
“You’re tense.”
“I’m trying to study.”
“You study before every game.”
“That is how routines work.”
“You also pretend you aren’t nervous before every game.”
Minho returned his attention to the textbook. “I’m not nervous.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You implied it.”
“I observed that you were pretending.”
Minho underlined the final answer harder than necessary.
Chan allowed the silence to remain for a moment before speaking again.
“Felix and the others are coming tonight.”
“I assumed Felix would.”
“He said Jeongin is bringing his roommate.”
Minho turned another page. “Should that mean something to me?”
“Han Jisung.”
The name was familiar in the way certain campus names became familiar without permission.
Minho had never spoken to Han Jisung, but he had heard enough to construct several versions of him.
A second-year music-production student who had once convinced a lecturer to extend an assignment deadline by claiming the studio had flooded.
A shameless flirt.
A talented producer.
A regular feature at parties.
Someone Changbin complained about with the exhausted affection usually reserved for younger siblings and dangerous pets.
Minho had seen him before, although never closely.
Jisung appeared in the backgrounds of photographs with his mouth open in laughter, usually wearing clothes too large for him and somebody’s arm around his shoulders. He occupied crowded rooms as though space naturally rearranged itself to accommodate him.
“He’s Seungmin’s friend,” Chan continued.
“I know.”
Chan glanced towards him. “You know?”
“I have ears.”
“That sounded dangerously close to interest.”
“It was information.”
“Of course.”
Minho lowered the textbook.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because you asked who was coming.”
“I did not.”
“You looked interested when I mentioned it.”
“I looked at you because you were speaking.”
Chan’s smile widened in a way Minho disliked.
Before he could respond, someone knocked twice and opened the door without waiting.
Hyunjin entered carrying a garment bag over one shoulder and an expression of profound personal betrayal.
“The costumes are terrible.”
Chan looked towards the bag. “Didn’t you design them?”
“That is not relevant.”
“It feels relevant.”
Hyunjin dropped the garment bag onto Chan’s bed.
He wore black dance trousers and a fitted shirt beneath an unzipped warm-up jacket. His hair had been pulled away from his face, though several long strands had already escaped around his temples.
“I designed them three weeks ago,” Hyunjin explained. “I was younger then.”
“You were twenty-five,” Minho said.
“I was artistically naive.”
“You called them your best work.”
“I was wrong.”
Chan leaned back in his chair. “What changed?”
“The lighting test.” Hyunjin’s voice became grave. “The silver panels make everyone look damp.”
Minho looked down at his textbook again. “Tragic.”
“Thank you.”
“That was not sympathy.”
“I am accepting it as sympathy.”
Hyunjin crossed the room and stopped beside Minho’s desk.
His gaze moved over the open textbook, then to the athletic tape, water bottle and folded uniform arranged neatly on Minho’s bed.
“You’re studying.”
“I have an assignment.”
“You have a game in three hours.”
“The assignment will continue existing afterward.”
Hyunjin placed one hand against the edge of the desk. “You are the only person I know who uses calculus to relax.”
“It is predictable.”
“Numbers are not predictable.”
“They are if you understand them.”
“That is exactly the kind of thing someone studying mathematics would say before developing a superiority complex.”
“Before?”
Chan laughed.
Hyunjin ignored him and looked more closely at Minho.
“You slept?”
“Yes.”
“Enough?”
“Yes.”
“Did you eat?”
Minho lifted his eyes.
Hyunjin’s expression remained serious.
People occasionally mistook Hyunjin’s protectiveness for dramatics. They were not entirely wrong, but they misunderstood the direction of it. Hyunjin could make concern sound theatrical and anger look beautiful, yet beneath both was a frightening capacity to remember every detail about the people he loved.
“I ate,” Minho assured him.
“What?”
“Rice, eggs and fruit.”
Hyunjin considered that acceptable.
“Good.”
Minho reached for his pen again. “Are you finished inspecting me?”
“No.”
“Then inspect quietly.”
Hyunjin moved towards Chan’s bed and began removing costumes from the garment bag.
The room gradually filled with silver fabric.
Minho completed another equation while Hyunjin and Chan argued over whether the reflective panels would appear intentional beneath stadium lights.
He found the solution, checked it once and tapped the answer with his pen.
Chan said nothing.
Minho still heard the smile in his silence.
He closed the textbook.
“Not a word.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Chan replied.
“You were going to.”
“I value my life.”
Hyunjin held up one of the jackets. “Does this look damp to you?”
“Yes,” Minho said.
Hyunjin’s face fell.
Chan looked at Minho in disbelief. “You didn’t even look.”
“I trust Hyunjin’s assessment.”
“That is the kindest thing you have ever said to me,” Hyunjin whispered.
“It was not intended as kindness.”
“It is too late. I have received it.”
Minho stood.
The loose shirt he had been wearing fell away from his torso as he stretched, exposing a narrow strip of skin above his sweatpants. His body complained immediately: the familiar tightness through his thighs, a dull ache in his right shoulder and the stiffness along his lower back that appeared after every heavy training week.
Nothing unusual.
He rolled one shoulder and reached both arms above his head.
Hyunjin watched critically.
“You’re favouring the right side.”
“I’m stretching.”
“You shifted away from it.”
Minho lowered his arms. “It’s slightly tight.”
“How slightly?”
“Not enough to matter.”
“That is not a measurement.”
“It is the measurement you’re getting.”
Chan’s chair scraped softly against the floor as he stood.
“Do you want me to tape it?”
“The trainer will.”
“Before warm-ups?”
“Yes.”
Chan nodded, though the line between his eyebrows did not disappear.
Minho looked between him and Hyunjin.
“This is why I don’t tell either of you anything.”
“You didn’t tell us,” Hyunjin pointed out. “I observed it.”
“That is worse.”
Minho collected his toiletries and clean training clothes before disappearing into the communal bathroom.
When he returned twenty minutes later, the silver costumes had been removed from his side of the room and arranged across Chan’s bed instead.
Hyunjin had left for rehearsal.
Chan was sitting near the window, texting with a softened expression that made the recipient obvious.
“Felix?” Minho asked.
Chan looked up. “He’s panicking because Hyunjin changed part of the choreography.”
“Hyunjin changes the choreography every time he panics about costumes.”
“I know.”
“You tell Felix that every time.”
“I know.”
“And he continues panicking.”
“He likes reassurance.”
Minho opened his wardrobe.
“That sounds inefficient.”
Chan’s smile became gentler. “You say that like you don’t reassure people.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. You just make it sound like criticism.”
Minho pulled on a fitted black training shirt.
The fabric settled close across his shoulders and narrow waist. Months of practice had built strength through his thighs and lower body without adding unnecessary bulk. Everything about football demanded explosive movement, but Minho preferred control over force. He trained until both became indistinguishable.
He changed into his athletic trousers and sat on the edge of the bed to lace his shoes.
Chan watched him for several seconds.
“What?” Minho asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“You have a routine face.”
Minho tightened the laces. “A what?”
“The expression you make when you’ve started thinking about the game.”
“I have one expression.”
“That is demonstrably untrue.”
Minho reached for his bag.
Chan stood as well and swung his camera over one shoulder.
They left the dorm together.
The residence hall had become crowded with students wearing university colours. Several called Minho’s name as soon as he entered the corridor. One asked for a photograph. Another shouted that they had bet twenty thousand won on him scoring twice.
Minho stopped walking.
“You did what?”
The student laughed nervously. “It was a joke.”
“It was a stupid joke.”
Minho continued towards the stairs.
Chan followed, amusement hidden badly behind his hand.
“You’re very inspiring.”
“I inspire financial irresponsibility.”
“That is still influence.”
Outside, the air had begun cooling.
Late-afternoon light stretched across the campus paths. Students were already moving towards the stadium, carrying banners and plastic horns that Minho hoped security would confiscate.
He kept his headphones around his neck until they reached the athletic building.
Chan stopped near the entrance.
“I have to collect the media equipment.”
“I know.”
“I’ll be near the field.”
“I know.”
“Felix will be in the front section.”
“You mentioned that.”
“With Jeongin and Jisung.”
Minho looked at him.
Chan’s expression was innocent enough to be suspicious.
“You are strangely invested in telling me Han Jisung will attend.”
“I thought you appreciated information.”
“I appreciate relevant information.”
Chan smiled.
“Have a good game.”
Minho recognised the dismissal for what it was.
“You’re irritating.”
“You’ll survive.”
Chan stepped backwards and lifted one hand before turning towards the media office.
Minho entered the athletic building alone.
The atmosphere changed immediately.
The corridors smelled of rubber flooring, disinfectant and the faint metallic trace of old sweat that no amount of cleaning fully removed. Coaches moved between offices carrying clipboards. Equipment staff pushed carts towards the locker room. Somewhere beyond the closed doors, his teammates were shouting over music loud enough to vibrate through the walls.
Minho stopped before entering.
He took his headphones from around his neck and placed them over his ears.
This was the only part of his routine nobody else understood.
Most of his teammates listened to music together before games. Loud tracks. Heavy bass. Songs designed to make adrenaline feel like confidence.
Minho preferred something quieter.
He unlocked his phone and opened the anonymous SoundCloud account he had followed for several months.
beforedawn.
He had found the account by accident during the previous semester. A song had started automatically while he was studying, and the singer’s voice had made him pause halfway through writing an equation.
Warm. Slightly rough at the edges. Honest in a way Minho rarely trusted.
The account contained no personal information. No photographs. No links. Only songs uploaded at irregular hours and occasional replies to comments that revealed nothing about the person writing them.
Minho had never commented.
He did not know what he could say without making the singer feel observed.
A new upload waited at the top of the profile.
nothing left to chase
Posted fourteen hours ago.
Minho pressed play.
Four quiet piano chords entered.
The noise outside the headphones disappeared.
I leave before the daylight,
before you change your mind.
Minho leaned back against the cool corridor wall.
The singer’s voice was softer than usual. Less polished. There was a breath in the second line that arrived late and a tremor near the end of the verse that should have been corrected.
Minho was glad it had not been.
I know how to make you notice.
I know how to make you stay.
I just never learned what happens
when there’s nothing left to chase.
The final note faded without resolving.
Minho remained still until the track ended.
Then he replayed it.
The first time, he listened to the arrangement.
The second, to the words.
By the third, he had stopped pretending there was a technical reason.
A locker-room door opened nearby.
One of his teammates leaned into the corridor.
“There you are. Coach wants everyone inside.”
Minho removed one side of the headphones. “I’m coming.”
His teammate looked at the phone in his hand. “What are you listening to?”
“Music.”
“Helpful.”
Minho locked the screen before the name could be read.
The teammate shrugged and disappeared again.
Minho let the final verse finish before removing the headphones completely.
He placed them carefully inside his bag.
Then he entered the locker room.
Sound struck him first.
Music from the speakers. Metal doors slamming. His teammates shouting over one another while changing into uniforms and wrapping wrists. The quarterback stood in the centre of the room reenacting a play from their previous game while three others interrupted to correct details nobody agreed upon.
Several people noticed Minho.
Their attention shifted immediately.
“There he is.”
“Twenty-five finally decided to join us.”
“Our star needs a private entrance.”
Minho walked towards his locker. “Our star needed thirty seconds without hearing your voices.”
Someone threw a rolled sock at him.
Minho caught it without looking and dropped it into the nearest bin.
The room erupted.
“You didn’t even look!”
“You throw predictably,” Minho replied.
He opened his locker.
His uniform hung inside, clean and carefully arranged. Number twenty-five waited across the chest.
A teammate from the offensive line appeared beside him and leaned one shoulder against the lockers.
“You nervous?”
“No.”
“You ever get nervous?”
“Yes.”
The teammate waited.
Minho began wrapping athletic tape around his wrist.
“When?” the man asked.
Minho tore the tape cleanly with his teeth. “When people ask too many questions.”
The teammate laughed and pushed away from the lockers.
Minho continued preparing.
Shirt.
Pads.
Uniform.
Tape around both wrists.
He retied his shoes even though he had already tied them correctly.
The routine narrowed the room.
One action followed another until the noise became irrelevant.
The trainer checked his right shoulder, pressed carefully along the muscle and applied supportive tape beneath the pad.
“Pain?”
“Two.”
The trainer looked at him.
“Three,” Minho amended.
“Tell me if it changes.”
“It won’t.”
“That was not the instruction.”
Minho nodded once.
The coach entered before the trainer could continue.
Conversations stopped gradually.
The team gathered in the centre of the room, helmets held beneath arms or resting near their feet. Minho stood between two teammates with his hands loosely clasped in front of him.
The coach began speaking.
Minho listened.
He knew the strategy. He knew the formations, the weaknesses in the opposing defence and the adjustments they would make if the first drive failed. They had reviewed everything for days.
Still, he listened.
Preparation was not about learning something once.
It was about repeating it until the body remembered even when fear made the mind unreliable.
When the coach finished, the room changed.
Nervous energy became movement. Helmets were lifted. Hands struck shoulders and pads. Someone began the chant, and the others joined until the sound filled every available space.
Minho fastened his helmet.
The world narrowed behind the faceguard.
The team began moving towards the tunnel.
He remained near the back, as he always did.
There was no need to rush.
Outside, the stadium crowd had already begun roaring.
Minho could feel the sound beneath his shoes before he could see the field.
He thought briefly of the song still waiting in his headphones.
A stranger singing about knowing how to make someone stay and having no idea what came afterward.
Then the tunnel opened.
Light flooded in.
Minho stepped onto the field, and everything complicated disappeared.