Amber Hours

The Han River at night was a study in quiet contradiction. The distant, glittering spine of Seoul’s skyline pulsed with silent energy, while the water below absorbed it all, reflecting only fragments of light in slow, dark ripples. The breeze carried the faint, damp scent of the river and the distant murmur of a city that never quite slept, but here on the walkway, it was just the soft lap of water against concrete and the occasional sigh of the wind.

On a double-sided bench facing the water, June lay flat on his back, a black baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. The worn leather of his jacket creaked softly against the wooden slats. In his head, a melody looped, fractured, and stubbornly refused to resolve. Broken Dreams. The track was almost there—the chord progression in the bridge ached perfectly, but the second verse’s lyrics felt like someone else’s memory. He hummed a fragment, the sound barely leaving his lips, a low, frustrated vibration in his chest. ‘The space between what is and what could be…’ No. Wrong. He let the thought dissolve into the night air.

On the opposite side of the high-backed bench, Chaeryeong slowed to a walk, her breath forming little clouds in the cool air. Her earbuds dangled, unused; the playlist in her head was on a relentless, single-song repeat. The oversized hoodie swallowed her frame, and her ponytail was a messy testament to a jog that had started with determination and ended with distraction. She patted the pocket of her jacket, her fingers finding the familiar crinkle of foil. Pulling out a half-eaten bar of milk chocolate, she broke off a piece and let it melt on her tongue, the sweetness a small, grounding comfort. She spotted the empty bench—the river-facing side—and with a quiet groan of relief, flopped down, unaware of the occupied other half.

For a moment, there was just the river and two separate silences.

Chaeryeong scrolled mindlessly through Instagram, the blue light painting her face. The chocolate and the familiar, haunting melody in her head loosened something. Softly, almost unconsciously, she began to hum. It was the chorus of Unrequited Feelings, a little off-key, the notes bending with a wistful emotion her technically perfect vocal training would never allow in a studio. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she hummed, her thoughts drifting to the SoundCloud page she’d bookmarked, to the raw ache in the singer’s voice that spoke directly to her own secret, romantic heart.

On the other side, the melody drifted over the bench back. June, still deep in his creative fog, his eyes closed under the cap, heard it. It wasn’t his own humming—this was lighter, sweeter, inflected with a feeling he’d written but hadn’t quite heard back until now. Without a single conscious thought, still chasing the ghost of the song in his mind, his voice lifted, singing the next line aloud. It was low, melodic, and startlingly close. “Is it a memory, or just a dream I keep…”

The effect was immediate and explosive.

Chaeryeong shrieked—a genuine, piercing yelp of terror. She launched off the bench as if propelled, her phone clattering onto the walkway. The chocolate bar flew from her hand, a dark arc against the night. Both hands flew up in a defensive, instinctive pose. “Aish! What the—!” she gasped, her heart hammering against her ribs. A ghost? A serial killer? Her scaredy-cat brain short-circuited, leaving only pure, adrenaline-fueled panic.

June jolted upright as if electrocuted. His cap tumbled off, revealing tousled dark hair and wide, startled eyes. He saw a woman—beautiful, terrified, staring at him like he’d risen from the river itself. His system flooded with mortification.

“Oh god—” he blurted, scrambling to his feet, hands up in surrender. “I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to—I was just—the song, I heard the song and my brain just… sang along. I swear I’m not a creep. That was so creepy. I’m so sorry.” The words tumbled out in a warm, frantic, deeply apologetic ramble.

Chaeryeong, panting, one hand pressed to her racing heart, slowly registered the rambling. Not a ghost. A person. A flustered person. Her eyes adjusted, taking him in: the leather jacket, the handsome, sharp lines of his face now etched with genuine panic, the cap lying forgotten on the ground. Fear ebbed, replaced by a hot wave of embarrassment, which then cooled into dawning, incredulous curiosity. Her fingers, moving on autopilot, flew to her hair, tucking and untucking the same escaped strand.

“You…” she managed, her voice shaky. “You just sang that song.”

He nodded, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah. I’m—it’s my song. I wrote it. I’m June. I make music. In my apartment. Not usually scaring people on benches, I promise.” He gave a helpless, awkward shrug.

His song.

The words connected in her brain with the sound of his voice—the same voice from her headphones, the one that had made her cry into her pillow. Her eyes, already wide, went impossibly larger. All remaining embarrassment was vaporized by sheer, starstruck shock.

“Wait.” She took a step closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Your song? ‘Unrequited Feelings’? That’s your song?”

He nodded again, confused by the intensity of her reaction. “Yeah…?”

The floodgates burst. Chaeryeong’s hands flew to her cheeks. “No way. No way,” she breathed, her voice pitching higher with unrestrained excitement. “I found your SoundCloud a week ago. I’ve listened to all four songs on repeat. ‘Meridian’ made me cry—like, actually cry into my pillow. I’m obsessed.” She caught herself, realizing how she sounded, and groaned, hiding her face for a second before peeking through her fingers. “Oh my god, I sound like a stalker now. I’m not a stalker. I’m just a fan. A big fan.” She was rambling, her cheeks burning, her hair now thoroughly disheveled from her nervous fingers.

June stared, utterly stunned. The fear, the apology, the entire bizarre situation melted away, leaving only a profound, disbelieving warmth. A shy, lopsided smile broke across his face. “You… you actually listen to my stuff? That’s… that’s crazy.”

Trying to claw back some semblance of dignity, Chaeryeong straightened her posture. She smoothed her hoodie and extended a hand formally, slipping into the polite, public-facing persona that was second nature. “I’m—”

“Chaeryeong,” he said quietly, his voice softening. He took her hand, his grip warm. “From ITZY. I know.”

She froze mid-handshake. Then a low, despairing groan escaped her as she used her free hand to cover her eyes. “So you saw me scream like a banshee and curse. Very idol-like. So professional.”

He laughed then—a genuine, warm, surprised sound that seemed to startle even him. It was a nice laugh. “Honestly, I’d scream too if a voice started singing behind me in the dark. Valid reaction. Ten out of ten.”

The tension snapped. Chaeryeong dropped her hand from her face, revealing a reluctant, then genuine, smile. She finally looked at him—really looked. The rugged handsomeness, the intelligent eyes still holding a trace of bewilderment, the way the leather jacket seemed like a part of him. A tiny, silent beat passed where they both just saw each other.

“So,” she said, gesturing to the bench. A silent truce. They sat back down, this time on the same side, a careful, respectful foot of space between them. The fallen chocolate bar lay a few feet away, a sad, forgotten casualty.

Now seated, a different kind of nervousness took hold of Chaeryeong. This was no longer about fangirling. This was about a dream. She took a steadying breath, tapping into a core of professional determination she rarely showed outside the practice room.

“I’m working on my solo debut album,” she began, her voice more measured. “I’ve been… searching. For a sound. Something emotionally raw, R&B-tinged, something that feels real, not just produced.” She turned to face him, her eyes earnest in the dim light. “It sounds exactly like your music. The feeling in it.” She hesitated, the question feeling huge in the quiet night. “Would you want to work with me? Produce one of the songs maybe?”

June’s reaction was immediate and visceral. He looked as if she’d gently shoved him. Flattery washed over him, followed by a tidal wave of disbelief. He rubbed the back of his neck, once, twice, three times—a quick, nervous tic.

“I’ve never done anything professional,” he said, the words rushing out. “I’m self-taught. My studio is literally second-hand gear I found online, crammed into my apartment. I don’t know the first thing about the industry, about budgets, about… any of it. I’d probably mess it up for you.”

Chaeryeong listened, then leaned forward, her gaze fierce. The hidden savage spark, the one her members knew well, flickered to life. “How do you make your songs, then? The ones that made me cry.”

He blinked. “Alone. In that apartment. With those second-hand things.”

“That,” she said, her voice firm, “is exactly what I want. That raw, honest sound. Not the polished industry machine.” She paused, a new idea forming. “Where do you live?”

A little dazed, he pointed across the river toward a small, modest two-story building nestled among taller complexes. A single warm light glowed in an upper window. “Right there. The one with the flickering balcony light. That’s my apartment. The studio.”

Chaeryeong stood up, brushing invisible lint from her joggers. A grin played on her lips—teasing, mischievous, full of a daring she hadn’t felt in months. “Great,” she said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She turned to jog away but stopped short. Her eyes landed on the discarded chocolate bar, now slightly melted and smeared on the concrete edge of the walkway. A pang of genuine loss hit her. Her chocolate.

She walked over, bent down, and picked it up delicately with two fingers, holding it aloft like a forensic investigator. “My chocolate,” she announced mournfully. Then she looked back at June, who was still frozen on the bench, watching her every move with captivated confusion.

Her expression shifted into a playful, faux-serious pout. “You owe me a replacement. And not just any chocolate. The good kind. The one with hazelnut filling.” She wagged the sad, ruined bar at him for emphasis. “Bring it tomorrow. With coffee. As your new producer-client tax.”

June just stared, utterly dumbfounded, his mouth slightly open. The whirlwind of the last ten minutes—the scare, the recognition, the monumental offer, and now a chocolate ransom—left him speechless.

Seemingly satisfied, Chaeryeong tucked the melted chocolate back into her jacket pocket with a resigned sigh. She shot him one last smile—a complex blend of starry-eyed fangirl and confident future collaborator—then turned and began to jog back down the path, her figure gradually dissolving into the shadows.

June remained frozen. The bench felt colder without her presence. He replayed it all: the humming, the scream, her wide, excited eyes, the direct question that still echoed in his ears. A breathless, disbelieving laugh finally escaped him. He ran a hand through his hair again and muttered to the empty night, “What… just happened?”

As he stood to collect his cap, a small, cinematic detail caught the distant light: a single, smeared fingerprint of melted chocolate on the wooden slat where she had sat. He stared at it for a second, then picked up his cap, brushing off a tiny, old chocolate stain of his own near the brim. Slinging his jacket tighter, he began the short walk home, a new, unplanned melody—light, curious, and sweet—already humming softly in his chest, keeping perfect time with his quickening heartbeat.

The morning sun filtered through the dusty window of his ground-floor apartment, painting stripes of gold across a floor littered with coiled cables. June had been awake since five, wiping down monitors, rearranging foam panels that didn’t need rearranging, and brewing a pot of coffee so strong it could probably stand up on its own. He’d also made a specific trip to the convenience store. The hazelnut chocolates sat in the center of his small kitchen table, a silent, hopeful testament.

A knock, soft but definite, echoed at exactly ten.

He opened the door, and the breath left his lungs in a quiet, surprised rush.

Chaeryeong stood in the hallway, backlit by the morning light from a distant window. She was a vision of effortless, off-duty chic that felt leagues away from the scared, hoodie-clad jogger of the night before. A black tube top hugged her frame, paired with relaxed, high-waisted plaid trousers that pooled slightly over sleek sneakers. An oversized, cream cardigan was slung off one shoulder, revealing a collarbone and the thin strap beneath. A statement Chanel hobo bag was hooked on her elbow. Her hair was in a low, loose ponytail, but soft, face-framing layers had been carefully styled to escape, and her makeup was minimal, just a hint of gloss and mascara that made her eyes seem even larger. In one hand, she held a sleek acoustic guitar case; in the other, a stylish canvas tote.

For a second, they just stared. Her fingers, free of bags, instinctively went to tuck a strand behind her ear.

“You came,” June finally said, his voice a mix of wonder and relief. A beat passed where he just blinked, as if confirming she was real. “I— part of me really, honestly thought you wouldn’t show up. Like, I half-expected to open the door and just find… a gust of wind and a hallucination I’d conjured from too much coffee and wishful thinking.”

A slow, teasing smile spread across Chaeryeong’s lips. She tilted her head. “I said I’d come. I’m a woman of my word.” She lifted the tote bag meaningfully. “Plus…” Her eyes sparkled with mock severity. “You still owe me chocolate. A whole replacement bar. With hazelnut filling. I specified. Very clearly. In the dark. While holding a melted tragedy. I have a photographic memory for chocolate-related debts.”

June laughed, the sound warm and a little breathless. His hand went to the back of his neck, rubbing once, twice, three times before he stepped aside to let her in. “I actually— I bought hazelnut ones this morning. Just in case.” He grimaced, suddenly self-conscious. “Is that pathetic? It feels a little pathetic. Over-eager, at least.”

Chaeryeong stepped past him, her perfume—something subtle and floral, like night-blooming jasmine—washing over him. She glanced around the small, tidy living area before turning that smile back on him. “It’s not pathetic. It’s optimistic. There’s a difference.” She held his gaze, her tone softening just a fraction. “I like optimistic.”

She then reached into her tote and pulled out a small, elegant box of premium Belgian chocolates, the kind with gold foil lining. She held it out to him. “And because I also believe in backup chocolate. Consider it a… studio-warming gift.”

He took the box, his fingers brushing hers. He stared at it, the expensive weight of it in his palm feeling disproportionately significant. “You didn’t have to…”

“I wanted to,” she said simply, cutting off his protest. She looked around again, her curiosity genuine. “So… do I get the tour? Starting with the source of the coffee smell, preferably. My caffeine dependency is waving a white flag.”

He led her to the tiny kitchen nook, barely more than a counter, a sink, and a two-burner stove. The pot was still warm. “How do you take it?” he asked, already reaching for a mug.

“With enough sugar to make a pastry jealous,” she declared, leaning against the counter. “Like… three spoons. Maybe four. Don’t judge me. My members judge me enough for it.”

“I’m a black coffee guy,” he said, pouring the dark brew. “So I’m definitely judging. Silently. In my head.” He found a sugar bowl and began scooping, his movements meticulous. “Three… and a fourth for the pastry’s wounded pride.”

She giggled, the sound bright and spontaneous. He thought it sounded like a melody he’d want to sample—a glockenspiel run, maybe, or a wind chime.

He handed her the mug. As he prepared his own black coffee, she opened the box of chocolates he’d bought, placing two on the counter between them. “New rule,” she announced, her tone faux-official. “Every studio session starts with chocolate. It’s a creative stimulant. Scientifically proven.” She paused for effect. “By me.”

He picked up his piece solemnly. “I accept the rule. Do we… toast?”

She raised her chocolate. He raised his. They clinked the little squares together instead of the coffee cups. She giggled again, and this time he couldn’t help the full, unreserved smile that broke across his face.

“What?” she asked, catching his expression, a faint blush on her cheeks.

“Nothing,” he said, quickly looking into his coffee. “Your sugar-to-coffee ratio is just… impressively committed. I respect it.”

“Good,” she said, taking a bite. Her eyes fluttered closed for a second. “Oh, these are the good ones. You’re forgiven for the bench-scare.”

“Whew,” he fake-wiped his brow. “My eternal soul rests easier.”

After coffee, he led her to a door beside the kitchen. “The upstair is the living space and the bedroom. And, this is where the magic happen.” he said, a rare thread of pride and nervousness in his voice. “Prepare for organized chaos.” He pushed the door open.

The studio was small, perhaps the size of a walk-in closet, but every inch was lived-in. Mismatched squares of acoustic foam in grey and blue covered parts of the walls, with a few peeling at the corners. A slightly battered MIDI keyboard sat on a wobbly stand, next to a pair of second-hand studio monitors that had seen better days. Cables ran in neat, color-coded coils along the floor, pinned in place with gaffer tape. The centerpiece was a vintage-looking condenser mic on a boom stand. The only sources of light were a single desk lamp with a green glass shade and a string of fairy lights haphazardly draped over the one window, which looked out onto a tiny, tangled patch of garden outside. The air smelled faintly of old wood, ozone from electronics, and the ever-present coffee. A worn, but incredibly soft-looking olive-green sofa took up one wall, piled with a faded quilt and a few throw pillows.

Chaeryeong didn’t offer polite praise. She stepped in slowly, as if entering a chapel. Her eyes traveled over every detail. She moved to the keyboard first, pressing a single key. The note rang out, slightly dull on the middle C.

“This place has a soul,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. She turned, her expression awed. “JYP’s studios are… technically perfect. State-of-the-art everything. But they feel like a hospital sometimes. Sterile. This…” She gestured around the room, a slow sweep of her hand. “This feels like music already lives here. Like it’s been waiting in the walls.”

June rubbed the back of his neck. “Most of it I got piece by piece since I was fifteen. Saved up lunch money, did odd jobs. Hunted second-hand forums for months for those monitors. They have a buzz in the left speaker if the humidity’s wrong. And the keyboard, well, you heard middle C…”

Chaeryeong turned to him, her gaze intense and serious, cutting off his self-deprecation. “But you built it yourself. From nothing.” She took a step toward him, her voice firm. “That’s not a ‘but.’ That’s the whole point. This is… amazing, June. Truly.”

Her sincerity was a physical thing, disarming him completely. He just nodded, his throat feeling suspiciously tight. To fill the silence, she pointed to the vintage mic. “What’s the story with this? It looks like it has stories.”

The tension broke. A fond smile touched his lips. “Flea market find. About four years ago. The guy selling it thought it was just a broken old prop. Got it for ten bucks. Had to re-solder the wiring, but… it’s my favorite thing in here. It picks up every breath, every little click in the throat.”

“It’s perfect,” she said, and she meant it.

They settled in—her on the sofa, him in the rolling chair by the desk. She sipped her sugary coffee, watching him over the rim. The initial awe settled into a comfortable, curious quiet.

“Can I ask you something?” she said after a moment.

“Sure.”

“If you’ve been doing this since you were a teenager… why only four songs on SoundCloud? I’ve been wondering since I found your page. You have this whole world in here.” She gestured around the room. “There must be hundreds of fragments, ideas. Why only those four?”

June leaned back in his chair, the old leather creaking. He looked at the ceiling, choosing his words. “Music was… always a diary, I guess. A private one. I never thought of it as a career, something to put out there. It was how I survived being a weird, quiet teenager. How I processed things I didn’t have words for.” He brought his gaze back to her. “Those four songs are the first ones I didn’t completely hate the next morning. The first ones that felt… finished, even if they aren’t technically perfect.” He gave a small, self-deprecating smile. “I’m a bit of a perfectionist. The kind who writes a whole song and then deletes the project file in a fit of frustration.”

Chaeryeong nodded slowly, her fingers playing with the end of her ponytail. “So you hide behind ‘hobbyist’ so you don’t have to risk failing. You call it perfectionism, but it’s really fear dressed up in really nice, introspective clothing.”

June blinked, then let out a short, surprised laugh. “That’s… an incredibly accurate and slightly terrifying callout. Do you have a degree in psychology or just a really perceptive vibe?”

A grin, sharp and a little savage, flashed across her face. “I know the type. I’m an idol, remember? Half my trainee life was trying to be perfect—the perfect note, the perfect move, the perfect smile. The other half was pretending I wasn’t absolutely terrified that I’d never be enough. I cried in practice rooms more times than I can count, just deleting takes of myself because my ad-lib wasn’t ‘genuine’ enough.” She met his eyes, a shared understanding passing between them. “So I recognize a fellow scared perfectionist. We’re a specific breed.”

Their eyes held. She tucked the same strand of hair behind both ears, a nervous flutter. He looked down at his hands, smiling faintly. “Well. Guess we’re both a bit of a mess, then.”

“A mess with good taste in music,” she countered, her tone lightening.

“Deal.”

The mood shifted from confessional to collaborative. She pulled the sleek hard drive from her bag—black, with a few cute ITZY stickers and a handwritten label in neat hangul that read “Ryeong’s Solo Dream.” He plugged it in, and his screen filled with folders. Voice memos labeled things like Hotel Melody 3am and Shower Idea. GarageBand demos with simple piano chords. Text files full of lyrical fragments.

For the next hour, she walked him through them. Her voice changed with each file—confident when explaining a chord choice, quietly vulnerable when playing a voice memo of her singing a raw, unprocessed melody in what sounded like a stairwell.

“This one,” she said, pointing to a simple piano loop, “I want it to feel like your song ‘Meridian.’ Emotional, honest, like you’re overhearing someone’s diary entry. That’s why I… I jumped on the opportunity yesterday. It wasn’t just fangirling.” She looked at him, her eyes earnest. “I’ve been searching for this sound, this feeling, for months. And then I found you on a random 2 a.m. SoundCloud deep dive. It felt like… I don’t know. A sign. Or a lifeline.”

June listened, his musician’s mind absorbing the textures of her ideas, but his heart was caught by the raw hope in her voice. When the last demo finished, the room was quiet save for the faint hum of the computer.

“These demos are beautiful, Chaeryeong,” he said, his voice low and serious. He turned to face her fully. “You’re not just an idol. You’re an artist. A real one. I mean that.”

Her blush was instantaneous, a deep rose spreading from her cheeks to the tips of her ears. She looked away, her fingers frantically twisting a lock of hair. “You don’t have to say that. They’re just scraps.”

“I’m not saying it to be nice. Listen to this melody here—” He clicked a file, and a haunting, wordless vocal run filled the small space. “—that’s not manufactured. That’s not a producer’s trick. That’s you. That’s the thing you’re searching for. It’s already in you.”

She slowly brought her eyes back to his. The vulnerability in them was breathtaking. “Thank you,” she whispered. It was the first time someone from outside her group, outside the industry bubble, had seen that hidden, artistic core and named it real.

“So,” he said, clearing his own tight throat. “Do we polish one of these? Or do we start something new? From scratch. Today.”

A spark of excitement lit her face. “New. Something that belongs to this room.”

She picked up her acoustic guitar, unzipping the case with reverence. “Fair warning,” she said, a little sheepish as she settled it on her lap. “I’m not an expert. I just use it to find melodies. I’ll mess up chords. A lot.”

“Mess-ups are where the best songs come from,” he said, rolling his chair to the keyboard. “Show me what you’ve got.”

She played a tentative, melancholy chord progression—D minor, B-flat major, F major, C major—looping it slowly. It sounded like late nights and unresolved feelings. Without a word, June layered a soft, warm pad sound underneath it, a bed of synth that made the simple chords feel expansive and cinematic.

They began to hum, almost at the same time. Her melody was light, searching, floating above the chords. His was lower, a counter-melody that anchored hers, giving it direction. They’d hum a phrase, stop, try another.

“What about lyrics here?” she asked, pointing to a spot in the structure they were building. “Something about… unspoken words? The weight of things you don’t say?”

June made a face, his nose scrunching. “A little on the nose, don’t you think? ‘Unspoken words’ is in, like, every other ballad.”

She gasped in mock offense. “Excuse you! It’s a classic for a reason!”

“It’s a cliché for a reason,” he fired back, grinning. “What about… ‘the echo in the space between us’?”

She considered it, humming the line with the melody. “Hmm. Less direct. More… atmospheric. I like it.” Then she teased, “See? You’re not just a pretty voice and a scary bench presence.”

He threw a crumpled Post-it note at her. She ducked, laughing.

The song took shape over the next two hours. They named it “Amber Hours,” for that golden, fleeting time between night and dawn when secrets feel safe to whisper. They recorded a rough guide vocal, Chaeryeong standing at the vintage mic, eyes closed, singing the words they’d woven together. Her voice, without any production, was raw, clear, and trembled slightly with emotion on the high notes. He hit record and let the tape roll, capturing every breath.

When the final note faded, he stopped the recording. He played it back, and they listened in the dark room, the fairy lights twinkling like distant stars.

The last chord hung in the air. June, who had closed his eyes, didn’t open them. “That’s the one,” he breathed.

Beside him on the sofa, Chaeryeong let out a slow, shuddering breath. “Yeah,” she whispered, her voice thick. “It is.”

A heavy, charged silence settled between them. It was more than just creative satisfaction. It was the intimacy of having built something beautiful together, of having seen into each other’s process. The professional line blurred, vibrated, and for one heartbeat, felt nonexistent. He could feel the warmth of her arm just inches from his on the sofa cushion.

She cleared her throat, the sound loud in the quiet. “We should… probably break. I have a schedule later.”

“Right. Yeah,” he said, snapping back to reality, rolling his chair to the computer to save the project file a little too forcefully.

She packed her guitar with deliberate slowness. She left the hard drive with him. “For inspiration,” she said. At the door to the studio, she turned. “Same time tomorrow evening? I’m free after six.”

June leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed, trying to look casual. “I’ll have coffee and extra suger ready. And maybe a backup chocolate for your backup chocolate. A chocolate-ception.”

Chaeryeong smiled, a softer, more private smile than she had given all day. “Good. Don’t think I won’t show up this time, either.” She slipped past him, through the living room, and to the front door. He followed, a step behind.

She opened the door, stepped out into the hallway, then glanced back over her shoulder. That smile again. Then she was gone, the click of her sneakers fading down the hall.

June closed the door. He stood there for a full minute, his forehead resting against the cool wood. Then, a slow smile spread across his face as he walked back to the studio. He didn’t turn on the lights. He just sat at the keyboard in the glow of the fairy lights and the monitor, and began to hum the melody of “Amber Hours,” adding a new, tentative harmony beneath it.

The first week blurred into the second in a haze of chord charts, lyric sheets, and an ever-growing pile of empty coffee cups and chocolate wrappers. The professional collaboration remained the anchor, but around it, a new ecosystem began to grow.

---

She arrived one evening looking utterly hollowed out, dark circles under her eyes visible even through her light makeup. “Two-hour photo shoot, then three hours of vocal coaching for the group comeback,” she mumbled, collapsing onto the studio sofa like a marionette with its strings cut. “My brain is soup.”

Wordlessly, June disappeared and returned with a mug of hot chocolate—not coffee—and the soft quilt from the back of the sofa. He draped it over her. “Just rest for ten minutes. The song can wait.”

They were supposed to be working on the second verse. But as she sipped the sweet drink, her eyelids grew heavy. He, thinking she was still listening, started playing soft, aimless piano chords on the keyboard, not “Amber Hours,” just meandering, peaceful progressions.

In that liminal space between waking and sleep, Chaeryeong began to hum. It was a fragile, improvised melody, a wandering thread of sound that wove perfectly through his chords. It was melancholic and sweet, a lullaby for no one. He stopped playing, his breath catching. Moving silently, he reached over and hit record on his interface, capturing the next minute of her sleepy, unconscious composition.

She woke with a jolt an hour later, disoriented. “Did I… fall asleep? Oh, no, I’m so sorry, that’s so unprofessional—”

“Shh,” he said, a finger to his lips. He played back the recording.

Her own voice, soft and dreamy, filled the room. Her eyes widened in horror, then slowly shifted to wonder as the melody unfolded. “Did I really…? That’s so embarrassing. I was basically snoring a tune.”

“You wrote that half-asleep,” he said, his voice filled with awe. “Imagine what you can do when you’re fully awake. Chaeryeong… this is our bridge. This is the missing emotional turn for ‘Amber Hours.’ It’s perfect.”

What she didn’t know, what he would never tell her, was that halfway through her humming, a long strand of hair had fallen across her face. In the dim light, without thinking, he had reached over and gently, so gently it was barely a touch, tucked it behind her ear. He’d pulled his hand back as if burned, a strange, tender guilt flooding him. It felt like a violation of her trust, even as it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Now, they listened to the lullaby-bridge together on the monitors, the professional reason for the recording pushing the personal moment aside. “It’s actually… kind of perfect,” she whispered, hugging a pillow to her chest.

He nodded, his eyes still on the waveform on the screen. “You’re kind of perfect.” The words left his mouth before his brain could catch them. He froze, then stammered, “At melodies, I mean. For this song. Specifically.” His ears turned a brilliant shade of pink.

Chaeryeong stared at her hands, her own cheeks flaming. “Right,” she murmured. “For the song.”

---

A few days later, they hit a wall. The second verse of “Amber Hours” refused to coalesce. After an hour of fruitless tinkering, Chaeryeong slammed her notebook shut.

“Nope. Creative block. Chocolate Emergency Level Red.” She stood, decisive. “We’re going on a field trip.”

She dragged him to the nearby convenience store. He watched, amused, as she filled a basket with an absurd variety of chocolates: milk, dark, mint, orange, one with popping candy. He quietly added a bag of shrimp chips to the pile.

Walking back with their haul, she nudged him. “Let’s go to the bench.”

He hesitated. The bench was where this had started, where the lines were undefined. “Yeah. Okay.”

They sat on the same side now, the river a shimmering sheet in the evening light. They tore into the snacks, passing things back and forth.

“Tell me something embarrassing,” she said, mouth full of chocolate. “Worse than singing from the shadows.”

He laughed, thinking. “High school talent show. I tried to sing this big, emotional ballad. Got to the key change, my voice cracked so loud the microphone feedback squealed. The entire auditorium went silent, then this one kid in the front row just started… slow-clapping. It was the most humiliating ten seconds of my life.”

Chaeryeong cackled, almost choking on a shrimp chip. “Oh, no! That’s amazing. My turn. Last year, during a year-end show, my mic pack came undone during the hardest part of the choreography. It flew off, hit the stage, and my voice just cut out while I was mid-spin. I had to finish the routine in complete silence, pretending nothing happened, while Yeji unnie was singing her heart out next to me. I wanted to melt into the floor.”

They laughed until their sides hurt, the sound carrying over the water. When their laughter subsided, she grew quiet.

“This bench is dangerous,” she said softly, looking at the water. “Every time we sit here, I end up sharing things I’ve never told anyone. You’re a bad influence.”

June leaned back, looking at her profile. “Same. I think it’s cursed. Or blessed. I’m not sure.” He took a breath. “I haven’t talked this much… about anything real… to anyone in years.”

The weight of the admission settled between them. This is becoming something. What is this?

Chaeryeong broke the tension by picking up a piece of chocolate and tossing it at his head. He caught it against his chest, grinning. The moment passed, but the echo remained.

---

She was struggling with a difficult F-barre chord transition, her fingers fumbling on the neck of her guitar. “Aish, it just won’t— my hand cramps.”

“Here, your index finger is too flat,” he said, scooting closer on the sofa. Without thinking, he reached over, his calloused fingers gently positioning hers on the fretboard, applying the correct pressure. “You need to roll it slightly, like this.”

His hand was warm and solid over hers. Her breath hitched, a tiny, audible sound in the quiet room. He heard it, felt the jolt that went through her, and immediately pulled his hand back as if shocked.

“Sorry— I shouldn’t have—“

“No, it’s— it helped,” she said quickly, her voice a pitch higher. She stared at the guitar, not seeing it. To cut the electric tension crackling in the air, she blurted, “Okay, new rule! If you teach me guitar, I get to teach you how not to be a recluse. Deal?”

He laughed, a nervous release. “What does that entail?”

“It entails you showing me a secret spot. Right now. Somewhere you’ve never shown anyone.”

He considered her, then sighed in mock defeat. “Fine. But it’s not that impressive.”

He led her up a narrow, unused staircase in his building, to a door that stuck. He shoved it open, revealing a tiny, forgotten rooftop. It was just a concrete square with a low wall, but it had a stunning, unobstructed view of the Han River and the bridges lit up like necklaces in the dusk.

Chaeryeong’s gasp was genuine. “June… this is incredible.”

“I come up here when the studio feels too small,” he admitted, leaning on the wall beside her.

They watched the sunset bleed from orange to deep purple in comfortable silence. She told him about her dream: a solo stage where she didn’t feel like ‘ITZY’s Chaeryeong,’ but just herself, her voice filling the silence. He told her his: to be walking down a street and hear a stranger humming a melody he’d written, unknowingly carrying a piece of him with them.

When it was time to go, she turned too quickly. Her hand brushed his forearm, a fleeting, accidental touch. Neither pulled away immediately. The contact lingered for a half-second too long before she tucked her hand safely into her cardigan pocket. They walked back down in a silence that felt charged, alive with everything they weren’t saying.

---

A sudden, violent downpour trapped her at his apartment. They abandoned the studio and made ramen in his tiny kitchen, sitting on the counter because there was only one chair. While he stirred the pot, she snooped through his open laptop, pulling up his music library.

A gasp of pure, undiluted delight echoed in the small space. “Oh my god. Oh my god. June. You have the entire ‘Boys Over Flowers’ OST? And… is this a playlist titled ‘2008 Emo Feels’? With Dashboard Confessional?”

June spun around, his face draining of color. “I can explain— no, I can’t. It’s a tragedy. A relic of my teenage years. I forgot it was on there—”

She was beaming, pointing at the screen. “This is the greatest discovery of my career. Greater than finding your SoundCloud! This is gold!”

“It’s mortifying is what it is,” he groaned, burying his face in his hands.

Twenty minutes later, they were singing a terribly off-key, passionate duet of “Paradise” by T-Max, shouting the dramatic lyrics over the sound of the rain, laughing so hard they had to hold onto the counter for support.

When the rain slowed to a drizzle, she was shivering in her thin cardigan. He wordlessly fetched a worn, grey hoodie from his room. It swallowed her whole, the sleeves extending past her fingertips. She hugged herself, enveloped in the faint scent of laundry detergent and him.

“I’ll return it next time,” she said, peeking up at him from within the oversized hood.

She never did.

---

Chaeryeong arrived early, a mission in her heart. She’d procured a ridiculous ghost mask from a variety show gag gift basket. Hiding behind the studio door, she waited, her heart pounding with mischievous glee.

The door opened. June walked in, balancing two mugs of coffee. She leaped out with a loud “BOO!”

He yelped, a genuinely undignified sound. Coffee sloshed over the rim of the mugs, splattering his t-shirt. He stared at her, at the grotesque mask, then at the stain spreading on his chest.

Chaeryeong ripped the mask off, her face alight with triumphant, savage joy. She doubled over, laughter shaking her frame. “Your face! Oh, payback is sweet!”

“You—” he sputtered, setting the mugs down with a clatter. He grabbed a nearby sponge from the desk, damp from wiping down the keyboard. “You think that’s funny?”

Her eyes widened. “Don’t you dare—”

He did. A brief, shrieking, giggling chase ensued around the small studio until he cornered her by the sofa. He didn’t use the sponge. Instead, they both collapsed onto the cushions, breathless and laughing.

At some point in the tangled heap of limbs, she realized her head was tucked against his shoulder, his arm was behind her back, and her laughter had died in her throat. The silence was sudden and deep. She could feel the steady thump of his heart through his damp shirt. Neither moved.

She swallowed. “We should… probably work now,” she whispered, the words barely audible.

He nodded, his chin brushing her hair. “Yeah.”

Neither moved for another ten seconds. Then, slowly, as if pulling against a magnetic force, she sat up. He cleared his throat and busied himself with the computer, clicking random files. The air was thick, sweet, and unbearably tense.

---

Chaeryeong’s phone buzzed on the mixing desk, the screen lighting up with a picture of Yuna making a duck face. Without thinking, Chaeryeong hit ‘answer.’

“Unnie!” Yuna’s bright, bubbly voice filled the studio. “Where are you? That’s not the dorm. That’s definitely not a JYP studio.” Yuna’s pixelated face squinted, then her eyes went round. “Are those fairy lights? Oh my god, are you at his place?”

Chaeryeong fumbled, lowering the volume. “Yuna, I’m working. I told you. The solo album. The indie producer I found.”

“Right, right. The mysterious producer,” Yuna said, her tone dripping with playful suspicion. “The one you’ve been spending every free second with for weeks. You know the unnies and I barely see you anymore. Yeji-unnie was asking if you’d moved out.”

“I haven’t moved out!” Chaeryeong hissed, her ears turning red. “I’m just… focused. The album is really coming together—”

At that exact moment, June walked into frame, holding a fresh mug of coffee for her. “Here, I added the fourth sugar— oh.” He froze, realizing she was on a video call. He was now fully visible on Yuna’s screen: messy hair, simple tee, holding a pink mug.

Yuna’s eyes went huge. A beat of dead silence. Then, a slow, mischievous grin spread across her face. “Oh. Oh. Unnie.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper that was still loud enough for the entire room to hear. “I would totally believe this was just professional and you’re super focused on music… if the producer weren’t that hot.”

“YUNA!” Chaeryeong shrieked, her entire face combusting. “He can hear you! Oh my god—” In her flustered panic, she swatted at the phone, knocking it off the desk. Yuna’s cackling laughter echoed from the floor.

June, standing frozen like a statue, slowly turned and pretended to be intensely interested in tuning an already-tuned guitar, the back of his neck a deep, telltale pink.

Chaeryeong scrambled for the phone, grabbing it and hissing into the screen. “I’m hanging up. We’re discussing this never.”

“Bring him to the dorm!” Yuna yelled, her grin taking up the whole screen. “I want to meet Hot Producer Oppa!”

Click. Chaeryeong threw the phone onto the sofa as if it were on fire and buried her face in her hands with a long, despairing groan.

June cleared his throat. The silence was profoundly, utterly awkward. “So…” he managed. “Coffee?”

Her muffled voice came from behind her hands. “Yes. Please. And maybe a memory wipe. Or a hole in the floor to swallow me.”

---

The denial was a dance they both mastered.

• She noticed a tiny, old chocolate smear on the edge of his mixing desk and teased him for being a “closet chocolate holic.” The next day, she left a new bar of the expensive stuff with a sticky note: “For emergencies. — Ryeong.”

• He saved a sunset photo she’d sent from their rooftop to his phone. It became his wallpaper. He’d quickly flip his phone face-down whenever she reached for hers nearby.

• Her hair-playing became an Olympic sport. Any direct gaze from him, any moment that felt too heavy, and her fingers would fly to her ponytail, tucking, twisting, braiding invisible strands.

• He opened a new project file and wrote lyrics that were unmistakable: “Eyes that hold every unspoken word / A melody I found but never heard.” He stared at it for a full minute, then deleted the entire file. Five minutes later, he dug through his digital trash bin to recover it, cursing himself under his breath.

• After the Yuna call, they couldn’t look at each other for a full hour without one of them blushing. She found his flustered avoidance unnervingly, secretly cute. He found her embarrassed pout utterly devastating.

The final evening of the fourth week. The studio was warm, bathed in the green glow of the desk lamp and the gold of the fairy lights. “Amber Hours” played through the monitors for what felt like the hundredth time. It was 95% complete. The verses glowed with intimate detail, the chorus ached with soaring release, and the bridge—her accidental lullaby—was a moment of heartbreaking, fragile beauty.

But the final crescendo, the last eight bars that should have delivered the song’s emotional payload, fell flat. They’d tried three different instrumental builds. A driving drum loop. A swell of strings. A distorted guitar riff. Each felt wrong, like a lie tacked onto a truth.

They sat side-by-side on the sofa, a single pair of headphones split between them, her left ear, his right. The final attempt faded to silence. Chaeryeong slowly pulled out her earbud, a frown of deep frustration on her face. “It’s almost there. It’s right there. But there’s… a ghost of something. A thing we’re not saying.” She glanced at him. “Musically, I mean.”

June set his earbud down on the desk. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, running his hands through his hair. “I know. It’s like the song is holding back. It’s built up all this feeling and then… politely excuses itself.” He looked at her, his eyes reflecting the tiny lights. “Like we’re holding back.”

A loaded pause stretched between them, filled only by the hum of the computer fan.

Chaeryeong’s voice was barely a whisper. “Maybe the song needs us to… trust it more. Trust what it’s trying to be.” She swallowed. “Trust each other.” She didn’t clarify the scope of that trust. The music, or the thing humming louder between them with every session.

June held her gaze, the air in the room growing thick and still. “Then we’ll find it,” he said, his voice low and certain. “The missing piece. Together. Next session.”

She nodded, the motion slow, as if moving through water. She stood, suddenly needing space from the proximity, from the unspoken answer that hovered in the silence. She gathered her bag, her movements slightly rushed. “Same time next week. We’ll crack it.”

He walked her to the door, the familiar ritual now laden with new weight. She stepped out into the cool hallway, then turned back. She looked at him—really looked—her lips parted as if to say something else. She bit the thought back, and all that came out was a soft, “Goodnight, June.”

“Goodnight, Chaeryeong.”

The door clicked shut. Inside, June leaned his back against it, eyes closed. He listened to the faint sound of her footsteps disappearing. In the quiet of his apartment, he whispered to the empty room, “What are we missing?”

The answer was a melody he was too afraid to sing, a lyric waiting in the space between every look and every almost-touch.

Outside, Chaeryeong paused under a streetlamp, several paces from his building. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the frantic, hopeful drum of her heart against her palm. She looked back at the window where the fairy lights still glimmered, then turned and walked into the night.

The song—and the unnamed, trembling thing between them—remained an unfinished, aching bridge, waiting for one of them to find the courage to play the final, resolving chord.

ITZY Dorm – Saturday

The dorm living room was quiet, a rare pocket of stillness between schedules. Chaeryeong sat curled on the couch, a bowl of expensive assorted chocolates—a gift from a fan—balanced in her lap. Her phone screen glowed in her hands, illuminating her face in the dim afternoon light. On the screen was a file: Amber Hours_Guide Vocal_Ryeong.wav. Her thumb hovered over the play button. She didn’t press it. She just stared.

Her mind wasn’t on the song’s technical issue, the missing piece of the bridge. It was a relentless reel of specific, sensory memories: the shocking warmth of his hand over hers on the guitar fretboard, the calluses on his fingers rough against her skin. The sound of their off-key, rain-drowned duet, his laughter mingling with hers. The low, vulnerable rasp of his voice in the dark studio, saying, “You’re the first person who’s ever really seen me.” The words had settled in her bones, a constant, humming truth.

The click of the door broke her trance. Ryujin padded in, heading for the kitchen. She stopped, backtracked, and peered at Chaeryeong. Her eyes flicked from Chaeryeong’s blank face to the full bowl of chocolates, then back.

“Whoa,” Ryujin said, her voice laced with playful, genuine concern. “Hold on. Time out. Did the Chocolate Holic just… ignore chocolate? An unopened, untouched, gourmet assortment? Should I call a doctor? Do we need a medical team? Because this is unprecedented. This is a code-red, system-failure-level event.”

Chaeryeong startled, the phone nearly slipping from her hands. “What? No, I was just—” she fumbled, grabbing a chocolate at random and popping it into her mouth too quickly. The rich hazelnut cream tasted like dust. “I was just thinking.”

“Thinking,” Ryujin repeated, one eyebrow arching high. She leaned against the doorway, crossing her arms. “Sure. And I’m just casually observing that you’ve been ‘thinking’ in that exact spot, with that exact expression, for forty-five minutes. About the song?” Her tone made it clear she wasn’t buying it.

“The song is… complex,” Chaeryeong mumbled, her eyes dropping back to her phone.

“Mhm.” Ryujin pushed off the doorframe, a knowing smirk playing on her lips. “Well, don’t think too hard. You’ll short-circuit your cute little brain.” She muttered under her breath as she walked away, “Thinking. Yeah, right.”

Later, Lia found her. The drama was playing on the TV, a flashy historical romance, but Chaeryeong’s eyes were unfocused. Under her breath, almost inaudibly, she was humming the unresolved melody of the missing bridge, a looping, aching phrase that went nowhere. Lia didn’t say a word. She simply picked up the soft fleece blanket from the armchair, unfolded it, and draped it gently over Chaeryeong’s shoulders. She gave her shoulder a soft squeeze, caught Chaeryeong’s briefly startled gaze, and smiled a small, deeply knowing smile before gliding out of the room.

Chaeryeong sank deeper into the couch, the blanket a feeble shield. On screen, the drama’s protagonists, having survived countless battles, finally found a moment alone in a moonlit garden. The music swelled. The hero cupped the heroine’s face, his thumb stroking her cheek. They leaned in—

Chaeryeong’s hand flew to her own lips, her fingers absently tracing them. She wasn’t seeing the actors. She was seeing June’s face, exhausted and open in the studio lamplight. The way he’d look at her sometimes, a question held in the silence between words. What would it feel like if he—

She caught herself with a jolt, a hot flush crawling up her neck. “Ugh, get a grip,” she hissed to the empty room. In a frantic, punitive motion, she grabbed three chocolates from the bowl and shoved them all into her mouth at once, chewing with grim determination as the saccharine sweetness overwhelmed her senses.

Sunday Evening

Chaeryeong was buried in his hoodie. The oversized grey fabric swallowed her, the cuffs stretched past her fingertips. She was on her bed, laptop open to her meticulously organized solo album vision board—mood images, color palettes, lyric snippets. She wasn’t seeing any of it. She was hugging a pillow to her chest, her face half-buried in it, breathing in the faint, lingering scent that clung to the hoodie’s collar: a mix of studio dust, clean laundry, and something uniquely, undeniably him.

The door flew open without a knock.

Yuna barreled in with the force of a tropical storm, followed by Yeji, who closed the door with a calm, definitive click. This was not a casual visit. This was an intervention, and the leaders had arrived.

“Okay. Enough,” Yuna declared, flopping onto the bed so dramatically the mattress bounced. She pointed an accusatory finger. “Unnie, you’ve been walking around this dorm like a ghost who lost her unfinished business. And you’re wearing that hoodie again. It’s Sunday. You wore it Saturday. And I’m pretty sure you slept in it Friday night. The math is mathing, and the math says you’re down bad.”

Chaeryeong clutched the pillow tighter, a defensive barricade. “It’s comfortable. It’s just a hoodie. It’s… it’s soft.”

Yeji sat gracefully on the edge of the bed, her presence a steady counterpoint to Yuna’s whirlwind. Her voice was gentle but unyielding. “Ryeong-ah. You’ve been absent even when you’re here. You missed your turn during Mario Kart yesterday. You never miss Mario Kart. You live for destroying Ryujin on Rainbow Road.”

“You let Ryujin-unnie win,” Yuna interjected, horror-stricken. “Ryujin. The one you’ve been trying to annihilate in that game since debut. She did a victory lap around the dorm. She was singing her own theme song. It was humiliating to witness.”

Chaeryeong’s hand flew to her hair, twisting a nonexistent strand. Her eyes darted anywhere but at them. “I’m just… stuck. The song. ‘Amber Hours.’ The final bridge. We can’t figure out what’s missing and it’s been weeks and I keep hearing it in my head but the piece won’t come—it’s like a word on the tip of my tongue, and it’s driving me crazy—”

Yuna cut in, not unkindly but with blunt finality. “Unnie. Respectfully. It’s not the song that’s stuck. It’s you. You like him. Like, like him like him.”

Chaeryeong froze. The air left her lungs in a soft whoosh. All the practiced denials evaporated. She just stared at Yuna, her eyes wide and guilty.

“He’s my producer,” she whispered, the protest weak even to her own ears. “We work together. That’s… that’s what it is. Professional.”

Yeji reached over and took Chaeryeong’s fidgeting hands, stilling them in her own warm grasp. “That’s what you tell yourself. But I’ve seen you after schedules. You don’t come straight home anymore. You go to that little studio by the river. You come back at 2 a.m. smelling like someone else’s coffee and… and quiet happiness. And you smile. Different from your stage smile. Different from your ‘I just ate good chocolate’ smile. It’s… softer. Like you’ve got a secret you’re treasuring.”

“It’s the ‘I’m falling for someone and I’m terrified’ smile,” Yuna supplied, nodding sagely. “I’m the maknae, not blind. I know things. I watch dramas. This is classic drama behavior.”

The carefully constructed dam inside Chaeryeong began to crack. Her chin trembled. “What if I…” Her voice dropped to a threadbare whisper, confessing her deepest fear to the safe darkness of her own lap. “What if I tell him and it ruins everything? The song isn’t even finished. We’ve been building it for weeks. It’s… it’s the best thing I’ve ever been part of. If I mess this up, I lose the album and I lose him. Both. At once.”

Yeji’s grip on her hands tightened. “And what if you don’t tell him? You stay scared forever. The song stays unfinished, a ghost between you. And you lose him anyway, slowly, because you were too afraid to try for something real. Which one sounds worse?”

“Unnie, you’re literally the group’s scaredy cat,” Yuna said, her voice softening into encouragement. “You scream at spiders. You jumped three feet when the toaster popped yesterday. But you also survived Sixteen. You debuted. You’re a total savage when you need to be—I’ve seen you destroy Yeji-unnie’s ego with one perfectly timed sentence. This is one of those ‘need to be’ moments. This is your Rainbow Road. Don’t let Ryujin win this one, too.”

Chaeryeong looked from Yuna’s earnest face to Yeji’s steady, supportive gaze. A long, shaky exhale escaped her, and with it, the first hot tear spilled over. Then another. “I like him,” she choked out, the admission a relief and a terror. “I really, really like him. It’s not just the music. It’s… him. The way he rubs the back of his neck when he’s nervous—exactly three times, every time. The way he bought hazelnut chocolate ‘just in case’ before I even showed up that first morning. The way he listened to my stupid, messy demos and called me an artist, not an idol, an artist, and he meant it, I could tell he meant it. The way he didn’t laugh when I screamed on the bench, he just… understood. The way he tucks hair behind my—” She stopped, catching herself, wiping her cheeks with the hoodie’s sleeve. “I’ve never felt this. About anyone. And it’s terrifying.”

Yuna scooted closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Then go get him. Finish the song. Finish the feelings. Stop hiding in this hoodie that definitely smells like him, by the way, I can tell from here.”

Chaeryeong took a shuddering breath, the chaos in her mind clearing into a single, sharp point of resolve. She looked at Yeji, her eyes still wet but focused. “Unnie… can you talk to manager-nim? Can I have tomorrow off? Just one day. No lessons, no rehearsals. I need to—I have to go there. Early.”

Yeji was already pulling out her phone, a small, proud smile on her lips. “I’ll handle it. You handle your heart.”

“And bring Hot Producer to the dorm officially sometime,” Yuna added, her playful grin returning. “I want to interrogate him properly. Over dinner. With wine. His wine. He’s paying. Those are my terms.”

Chaeryeong laughed, a wet, hiccupping sound, and nodded. After they left, the room settled into a deep quiet. She sat alone for a long moment, the weight of her confession still humming in the air. She brought the hoodie’s collar to her nose, inhaled his fading scent, and whispered to the silent room, her voice firm, “Tomorrow. No more scaredy cat.”

June’s Studio – Saturday to Sunday Night

Time lost all meaning in the green-gold cave of the studio. Daylight through the high window bled into orange dusk, which faded to black, then grudgingly gave way to grey dawn, and the cycle repeated. June hadn’t left the chair, not really. He’d stumble to the bathroom, to the kitchen for more brutal, black coffee, and return, his body moving on autopilot.

The evidence of his siege was everywhere. Empty coffee mugs formed a precarious tower on the desk. The bag of hazelnut chocolates she’d left behind was now just a crumpled wrapper. And scattered around him like fallen leaves were dozens of notebook pages, each a battlefield of scribbled, crossed-out, and violently circled lyrics.

Fragments, all about her:

• “Eyes that hold every unspoken word / A melody I found but never heard.”

• “Hands that find melodies in the dark / Tracing constellations where you leave your mark.”

• “Hair that falls like a midnight sigh / And I just want to be the one who tucks it back, and tries…”

He’d crumple a page, hurl it at the wall with a grunt of frustration, only to get up moments later, retrieve it, and smooth it out with desperate care, as if destroying the words might destroy the feeling itself.

His own voice, hoarse from disuse and caffeine, was his only conversation. “It’s not a production problem,” he argued aloud to the blinking cursor on the screen. “The frequencies are fine. The arrangement works. The structure is solid. It’s… me. I’m the missing piece. I can’t finish it because I don’t want this to end, and I’m too terrified to say why. Because if I say why, and she doesn’t… then it ends anyway.”

Around 3 a.m., on Sunday night bleeding into Monday morning, his mind finally broke. The overthinking engine ran out of fuel. Exhaustion became a kind of clarity. He sat at the keyboard, closed his eyes, and let his hands fall onto the keys. No plan, no theory, just feeling.

His fingers found a progression—not complex, but profound. A series of lifted, questioning chords that climbed, hesitated, and then resolved not with a triumphant major bang, but with a soft, sustained minor-add-nine, a sound that was both hopeful and aching, a musical question that finally allowed itself a gentle, tentative answer. It sounded like golden light through dusty windows. It sounded like her.

His eyes flew open. He stared at his own hands as if they belonged to a stranger. “That’s it,” he whispered, the sound raw in the silent room. “That’s the bridge. That’s… that’s her.”

A frantic energy seized him. He scrambled, firing up the recording software, laying down the piano track with trembling fingers. He added a soft, warm bassline that held the hope, leaving wide, open spaces for her voice to fill. He wrote the final lyrics in a white-hot rush, the words pouring out unfiltered: “So let the amber hours stretch / Beyond the fading edge of night / I’ll be the one who stays, who catches every light / That falls from you, from you who finally saw me right.”

His hands were shaking so badly he had to stop typing and just breathe for a minute. When he finally clicked ‘Save’ on the file labeled Amber Hours – FINAL MIX v1, the clock on his screen read 7:03 a.m. Monday. He hadn’t slept in over thirty-six hours. He slumped back in his chair, staring at the screen, feeling not exhaustion but a profound, trembling relief. The song was finished. The truth was in it. Now he just had to wait for her.

Monday Morning

He was still slumped there, head buzzing with caffeine and sleep deprivation, eyes glued to the finished waveform on the screen, when a knock echoed through the quiet apartment. Sharp, clear, insistent.

He blinked. It was too early for the mail. Too early for anyone. A slow, irrational hope sparked in his chest. He stumbled to the door, his movements stiff from hours in the chair.

He opened it.

Chaeryeong stood on the other side, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She was wearing his grey hoodie—the one she’d never returned—paired with simple light grey sweatpants. Her hair was down, the untied, slightly messy look he’d come to recognize as her “off-duty” state. Minimal makeup. She looked simultaneously determined and utterly terrified, like someone standing at the edge of a high dive, toes curled over the brink.

I know, this is not a hoodie. But, let's imagine it is..

“Chaeryeong?” he said, his voice rough and gravelly from lack of sleep. “It’s—it’s early. Like, 7 a.m. early. You usually come in the evening. Is everything okay? Are you okay?” His brain, still fogged with fatigue, defaulted to concern.

She opened her mouth, closed it, swallowed, and then forced the words out in a rushed, jumbled stream. “I needed to—I came because I—there’s something I have to tell you. About the song. About—about us. I’ve been thinking all weekend, and my members staged an actual intervention, and I couldn’t sleep, and I just—I need to say it before I lose my nerve—”

But his face, previously lined with exhaustion, suddenly lit up with a manic, excited energy. He wasn’t hearing her confession; he was bursting with his own. Before she could finish, he reached out and grabbed her hand, his grip firm and urgent.

“Wait—wait,” he said, cutting her off. “I finished it. The song. ‘Amber Hours.’ I was up all weekend. I haven’t slept. I think I’ve had seven coffees. But I finally figured out what was missing. You have to hear it. Right now. Before anything else.”

Chaeryeong blinked, completely derailed. Her carefully rehearsed speech evaporated. “You—you finished it? The bridge? The thing we couldn’t—”

“I finished it,” he said, his eyes blazing with a tired, triumphant joy. “Come on.” He tugged her hand, already pulling her toward the studio, and she let him, her confession temporarily swallowed by overwhelming curiosity and the sight of his exhausted, hopeful face.

He pulled her into the warm, familiar chaos of the studio, guided her not to the usual chair but to the worn sofa, and hit play on the main monitor before she could even sit down properly.

The track filled the room. It started with the verses they’d built together—the intimate, detailed snapshots of golden-hour light and quiet yearning. Then her own voice, soft and dreamy, floated in for the lullaby bridge she’d hummed half-asleep, the melody he’d preserved like a sacred artifact. And then… the new part. The final bridge she’d never heard.

His piano, aching and hopeful, played the progression he’d found at 3 a.m. It wasn’t flashy; it was heartfelt, a series of chords that felt like a heart slowly opening. Then his voice, rough but tender, singing the lyrics he’d written in the dark: “So let the amber hours stretch / Beyond the fading edge of night / I’ll be the one who stays, who catches every light / That falls from you, from you who finally saw me right…” The music swelled softly, not with orchestral grandeur, but with a warm bed of synth and a soft, sustained chord that felt like a long, peaceful exhale. Then it gently faded back into the final chorus, now feeling complete, resolved.

They listened in complete silence, side by side on the sofa. Chaeryeong’s hand drifted unconsciously to her chest, as if trying to hold the feeling inside. Her eyes grew wide, then glassy, shimmering with unshed tears. It was perfect. It was them.

The song ended. The studio was quiet again, save for the hum of the computer.

June turned to her slowly. His earlier excitement had melted into a vulnerable, nervous hope. His voice was barely above a whisper. “So… how is it? Is it—does it work? I changed the bridge completely. I wrote it at like 4 a.m. so if it’s terrible, just tell me, I can rework it—”

Chaeryeong didn’t answer with words.

Instead, she reached out, her fingers finding the soft cotton of his t-shirt. She grabbed a fistful of fabric and pulled him toward her, bridging the small space between them on the sofa, and kissed him.

The kiss was impulsive, heated, a dam breaking after weeks of pressure. It wasn’t gentle or exploratory; it was a direct, desperate transfer of all the feeling she’d been carrying. June made a surprised sound against her lips—a soft, muffled “mmph”—then his hands found her waist, anchoring her, and he was kissing her back instinctively, his body responding before his mind could catch up.

But then Chaeryeong’s brain, always a few steps behind her heart, caught up. She broke the kiss with a sharp gasp, but didn’t pull away—their faces remained inches apart, her hands still fisted in his shirt. She started mumbling rapidly, words tumbling over each other in a panic.

“Oh god—I’m sorry—the song was just so beautiful and I was already emotional and I came here to tell you something important and then you played that and the bridge was perfect and I just—I didn’t mean to just grab you like that, that was so unprofessional, we should talk about the song first, I had a whole speech planned, I practiced it in the mirror three times—”

June cupped her face with both hands, his palms warm against her cheeks, stopping her spiral mid-word. “Ryeong. Stop.”

She stopped. Her lips were still parted, her eyes wide and worried. He looked at her—really looked, his tired eyes searching hers, seeing the fear, the hope, the love all tangled together—and then he leaned in and kissed her again.

This time, he was the one initiating. It was slow, deliberate, a deep and tender question and an answer at once. When he pulled back, his voice was rough with emotion. “I’ve been wanting to do that for three weeks. Maybe four. Since the bench. Please don’t apologize for it. Don’t ever apologize for that.”

They kissed again, deeper this time, and the world narrowed to the soft press of lips, the shared breath, the feel of his hands sliding from her waist to her back. He stumbled backward onto the sofa, pulling her with him, and she climbed onto his lap naturally, knees bracketing his hips, settling against him with a sigh that was half-relief, half-desire.

Between kisses, their withheld confessions tumbled out in fragments—not in one long, formal speech, but broken up by breathless pauses and the desperate need to reconnect physically.

Chaeryeong, against his lips: “The song wasn’t the only reason I kept coming back.”

June, kissing the corner of her mouth, then her jaw: “I know. I hoped. Every time you walked through that door I hoped. I was terrified I was wrong.”

Chaeryeong, pulling back just enough to meet his eyes, her hands on his shoulders: “My members staged an intervention. Last night. Yuna called you ‘Hot Producer’ and Yeji told me to stop being a scaredy cat. Those were her exact words.”

June laughed, a real, bright sound, and dropped his forehead against hers. “I like your members. Remind me to send them chocolates. The most expensive ones I can find.”

“I came here to confess, to finally stop being a scaredy cat,” Chaeryeong whispered, her nose brushing his. “But this… this is far better.”

She kissed him again, slower this time, savoring the taste of him—coffee and sleep and want. Her hips shifted unconsciously against his lap, a small, experimental rock. A soft, involuntary sound escaped her—a tiny moan swallowed by his mouth. He groaned in response, his hands tightening on her back.

They broke for air, both panting, eyes dark and wide with newfound hunger. Her lips were slightly swollen, his hair was a complete wreck from her fingers. Her playful savagery emerged through the haze of nerves and desire.

“So…” Chaeryeong said, her voice unsteady but with a hint of familiar teasing. “You mentioned it once. The first day. ‘Living space and bedroom. Very mysterious.’ Is it… is it finally time for the tour upstairs?”

June laughed, dazed and happy. “You remember that? That was weeks ago. The chocolate and scream day.”

“I remember everything you’ve said to me,” she said softly, her gaze unwavering. “Every single thing.”

He kissed her again, a deep, claiming kiss that left them both breathless. Then he gripped her thighs firmly and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist with a squeak of surprise that melted into laughter. He carried her through the studio door, into the narrow, dim stairwell, and they kept kissing as he navigated the steps—clumsy, giddy, nearly tripping on the top step when she nibbled his earlobe. They stumbled into the hallway wall, both dissolving into breathless, helpless giggles.

Chaeryeong, deadpan against his shoulder: “Romantic. Very smooth. I feel so carried.”

“I’m an indie producer,” June said, grinning as he adjusted his grip on her. “We don’t do smooth. We do heartfelt chaos. It’s in the job description.”

He pushed open his bedroom door with his shoulder—a small, simple room with an unmade bed, a bookshelf overflowing with vinyl records and books, morning light filtering through thin, plain curtains. He laid her down on the mattress gently, as if she were something precious and fragile. He hovered above her, one hand braced beside her head, and just looked at her for a long moment—her hair spread out on his pillow, wearing his hoodie over her own clothes in his bed, her eyes bright with nerves and want and a trust that made his heart ache.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, not as a smooth line, but as a quiet, awed revelation. “I’ve thought it since the bench. Every single time I saw you. I was just too scared to say it out loud.”

She reached up, touched his jaw, her fingers tracing the line of it. He leaned into her palm, his eyes closing briefly, savoring the contact.

He lowered himself, kissing her again—softer now, slower, savoring. His hand found the hem of the hoodie, fingers playing with the fabric, a silent question. She answered by pulling back just enough to grip the hem herself, and in a bold, decisive motion, she pulled it over her head and tossed it aside. Underneath was a simple, pretty bra—light pink, delicate, entirely her.

His breath caught audibly. He just looked at her—not with hunger alone, but with adoration, wonder, and a deep aching tenderness that made her suddenly self-conscious. Her arms instinctively moved to cover herself, crossing over her chest.

“What?” she asked, her voice suddenly small. “Why are you looking at me like that? You’re staring. Again.”

He shook his head slowly, his expression reverent. “Like… I can’t believe you’re real. Like I’ve been writing songs about someone my whole life and she just… appeared on a bench at midnight and started humming my song and screaming at me. And now she’s here. In my bed. Wearing my hoodie. Looking at me like I matter. I’m staring because I’m terrified I’ll blink and you’ll disappear.”

Her bravado crumbled completely. The nerves rushed back in a wave. Her fingers curled into the sheets beside her, and she couldn’t meet his eyes. He noticed the shift immediately. He pulled back, his hands withdrawing to safe, neutral territory on the bed.

“Hey. Ryeong. Look at me.” His voice was gentle but firm. She did, reluctantly. “We can stop. Right now. If you’re not ready, if this is too fast, we stop. No song is worth you feeling pressured. No album. Nothing. You’re worth more than all of it. Okay?”

Chaeryeong shook her head quickly. “No—that’s not—I want this. I really, really want this. I’ve been thinking about it… for weeks. About you. About… this. It’s just…” She took a deep breath, her voice dropping to a whisper barely audible in the quiet room. “I’ve never done this before. With anyone. I’m—it’s my first time. And I’m nervous. And I don’t want to be bad at it. I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

A visible wave of relief washed over his face—not because his desire dampened, but because the fear of misunderstanding dissolved. “Oh. Oh, Ryeong.” He took her face in his hands again, thumbs brushing her cheeks. “You could never disappoint me. Never. This isn’t a performance. There’s no score. No stage. No cameras. It’s just… us. Just you and me, figuring it out together. That’s all it has to be.”

“Really?” she asked, her eyes glistening. “You’re not just saying that?”

“Really,” he vowed. “I like you. Not ‘idol Chaeryeong.’ Not ‘client Chaeryeong.’ You. The woman who screams at benches and hoards chocolate and writes melodies in her sleep. The woman who jumped out at me in a ghost mask and laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe. I like that woman. A lot. An embarrassing, wrote-lyrics-and-fished-them-out-of-the-trash, didn’t-sleep-for-two-days amount.”

Chaeryeong laughed, a wet, relieved sound. “That’s a very specific amount.”

“I’m a very specific person.”

She exhaled, a long breath that seemed to release the last of the tension from her shoulders. “Okay. Okay. I… I’m ready. I trust you.”

He looked down at her, his expression solemn, almost a vow. “I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

He removed his own t-shirt, revealing a torso that was lean, not heavily muscular but defined. She reached up and touched his chest with curious, tentative fingers, tracing the line of his collarbone, the dip between his pectorals. He shivered under her touch.

He lowered himself on top of her, careful not to put his full weight on her, and resumed kissing her—slow, thorough kisses that moved from her lips to her cheek, to the tip of her nose, to her closed eyelids, to her forehead. Each kiss was punctuated by a murmured, fragmented compliment.

“You’re so soft here,” he whispered, kissing the hollow of her throat.

“Your voice does something to me,” he said against her skin as he reached her collarbone.

Her breath hitched. “Good something or bad something?”

He nuzzled the spot, playful. “Dangerous something.” She arched slightly, a silent plea.

When he reached her chest, his hand paused at the clasp of her bra. He looked up, his eyes asking a clear, patient question. She gave a tiny, decisive nod.

He unclasped it with careful fingers, drawing the straps down her shoulders slowly. He cupped her breasts—soft, a perfect fit for his palms—and pressed a reverent kiss to the valley between them. “Beautiful,” he murmured into her skin. “Everything about you.”

When his mouth finally closed over one erect nipple, his tongue circling gently, and his eyes flicked up to meet hers, she released a moan so soft and involuntary it was almost a sigh. He groaned in response, the sound vibrating against her skin. He spent long, devoted minutes there, alternating between her breasts, lavishing attention with his lips and tongue until her breathing was ragged and her hands were fisted in his hair, not pushing him away but holding him close.

He kissed a path down her stomach, over her navel, to the waistband of her sweatpants. He looked up one more time—his eyes always asking silent permission. She lifted her hips in answer, helping him slide the sweatpants and her matching, simple panties off in one smooth, slow motion.

He paused at the sight of her—glistening, pink and perfect, with a small neat patch of hair above. His expression was awed, reverent. “You’re staring again,” she said, shy, her thighs trembling slightly.

“I’m appreciating,” he replied, his voice husky with emotion. “There’s a difference.”

He gently parted her thighs, pressing a soft kiss to the inside of each one before finally lowering his mouth to her center. He started at her clit—gentle, exploratory, reading her every gasp and flinch—then delved deeper, drinking her in like he’d been dying of thirst. Her moans grew in frequency and pitch, soft little cries that spurred him on. He added two fingers, curling them gently inside her, and the combined sensation pushed her over the edge with startling speed. She grabbed his hair, held him there, and came with a silent cry and a full-body shudder that seemed to surprise even her. He didn’t stop—he gentled his movements, working her through the intense waves until she tugged his hair lightly from over-sensitivity.

She guided his face back up to hers, pulled him into a deep, messy kiss, tasting herself on his lips. The intimacy of it made her whimper against his mouth.

When they broke apart, both breathing hard, she looked directly into his eyes. Her voice was soft, almost innocent—but the words were anything but. “June… I want you inside me. Please.”

His brain visibly short-circuited. He froze, staring at her like she’d just spoken a language he was still learning. Then she said it again, the same gentle, adorable tone: “June. Please fuck me.”

He groaned, dropping his forehead to hers. “You can’t—you can’t say things like that in that voice. It’s not fair. That’s the voice you use when you’re talking about chocolate. Not—that.”

She smiled, clearly enjoying his struggle, some of her playful confidence returning. “What voice?”

“The voice. The one that sounds like a lullaby. While asking for—that. It’s going to kill me.”

“A good death?” she teased, shifting her hips beneath him.

“The best. The absolute best death.”

He quickly shed his remaining clothes. She watched, her eyes curious and wanting. When he instinctively reached for the bedside drawer, she stopped him with a gentle hand on his wrist. “You don’t need it. I’m on the pill. And I want—I want to feel you. All of you. For my first time. Please.”

His eyes squeezed shut. He took a long, steadying breath. “You’re going to be the end of me. In the best possible way.”

He positioned himself above her, settling between her legs, and took himself in hand, rubbing the tip through her slick folds, coating himself in her. She squirmed impatiently. “Don’t tease,” she whined.

“Not teasing,” he said, his voice strained with control. “Preparing. You’re—you’re really tight, and I don’t want to hurt you. I won’t hurt you.”

He began to push in, achingly slow. She gasped at the stretch, the unfamiliar fullness, her hands flying to his shoulders, nails pressing lightly into his skin. He paused, letting her adjust, kissing her forehead, her nose, her lips—soft, reassuring, patient—before inching deeper, millimeter by millimeter. When he was finally fully seated, he stopped completely. They were both panting, foreheads together, connected in every possible way.

Chaeryeong’s voice trembled with wonder. “I feel so… full. You’re everywhere. Is it always like this?”

June’s response was strained but tender. “I don’t know. It’s never been like this for me. Not ever. Not even close.”

He began to move—slow, shallow thrusts that gradually deepened as her body relaxed and welcomed him, finding a rhythm that matched the way her hips started to meet his tentatively. Her second orgasm built differently—deeper, more consuming, a slow burn that tightened her core—and when it broke, she cried his name into the quiet room and he felt a sudden, hot gush around him, a flood of release that startled them both.

“Did you just—?” he asked, amazed, still moving gently within her.

“I don’t know—I don’t know what that was—” she managed, mortified and blissful all at once.

“That was incredible,” he whispered, kissing her shoulder. “You’re incredible.”

When she calmed, still trembling with aftershocks, she pushed lightly at his chest. “I want to—can I be on top? I want to try.”

He rolled them carefully, settling her above him in a cowgirl position. She moved tentatively at first, finding a rhythm, a slow rise and fall, and then her confidence built as she saw the effect on his face—his eyes dark with pleasure, his hands gentle on her hips. She rode him at her own pace, hands braced on his chest, her hair falling around her face like a curtain, utterly unguarded. He watched her like she was the sunrise after a long night.

When her rhythm faltered and she clenched tightly around him—close to another peak—he felt his own control unravel. He gripped her hips and thrust up from below, meeting her movements, fast and deep, chasing the edge with her. “Together—I’m—” he gasped, his voice breaking.

“Yes—yes—June—” she broke, her voice shattering into a wordless cry as the sensation overwhelmed her. They shattered together, a shared, explosive release that tore through them both—his hips driving up into her one last, deep time as her inner muscles clenched and fluttered around him in rhythmic pulses, milking his own climax from him in hot, urgent spurts that filled her, a searing intimacy that had them both crying out into the quiet morning air.

For a long moment, there was only the sound of ragged breathing, the hammering of two hearts against each other's skin. He collapsed back onto the mattress, pulling her down with him so she lay sprawled on top of his chest, a boneless, sweaty, spent weight. His semi-erect cock was still nestled inside her, their combined fluids a warm, damp testament on the sheet beneath them. Neither moved to separate. His arms came around her, one hand mindlessly drawing small, lazy patterns on her sweaty back—circles, then music notes, then what might be the letters of her name.

The silence was comfortable, heavy with everything that had been said and done, glowing with a new, profound quiet.

The morning light grew stronger, painting golden stripes across the rumpled sheets and their tangled legs. Chaeryeong’s ear was pressed to his chest, listening to the frantic rhythm of his heartbeat gradually slow to a steady, strong thump. His fingers never stopped their gentle tracing on her skin.

She was the one to break the quiet, her voice soft and thoughtful, muffled slightly against his skin. “The final version… it’s perfect. ‘Amber Hours.’ You really fixed it. The bridge—it was like hearing everything I’ve been feeling but couldn’t say.”

His hand stilled for a moment, then resumed its path. “It wasn’t broken,” he said, his voice a low rumble in his chest beneath her ear. “The song was just… waiting. For me to be honest. I couldn’t finish it because I was holding back. From the music, from you, from myself.”

She lifted her head slightly, just enough to rest her chin on his sternum and look at him. Her eyes were clear, soft. “How did you figure it out? What was the missing piece?”

He was quiet for a long moment, looking past her at the ceiling, gathering the words. Then his gaze dropped back to hers. “I stopped trying to fix the song and started thinking about… you. About us. The bench that first night, how you screamed and dropped your chocolate. The way you made ‘every session starts with chocolate’ a rule. The way you hum in your sleep and it becomes the best melody I’ve ever heard. The way you’re terrified of everything—ghosts, bugs, toasters—but when it comes to your music, you’re fearless.” He paused, his thumb coming up to brush a stray strand of hair from her cheek. “I wrote what I felt. About you. And it fit. Like it was always supposed to be there. Like the song was waiting for me to admit that I’m falling for you.”

The words hung in the air, simple and devastating. Falling for you.

Chaeryeong stayed silent for an even longer moment, settling her head back down on his chest, feeling the solid, real beat of his heart beneath her ear. Then she spoke again, quieter. “We should start working on the next track soon. Track two. We have a whole album to finish.”

A teasing lilt entered his tired voice. “Was this all an elaborate scheme to keep me producing your album? Seduce the indie producer so he can’t say no to track two?”

She lifted her head fully now, propping herself up on her elbows to look directly into his eyes. Her expression was suddenly dead serious—no teasing, no deflection, just raw, unveiled truth. “No. It wasn’t about the album. It was about me thinking about you for weeks—every minute, every spare thought. My feelings growing so fast and so big I couldn’t contain them inside me anymore. It was about me finally giving myself to you. Completely. Not to a producer. To you. June. The person. I’ve never done that before—given myself to anyone. But I wanted it to be you. Only you.”

They looked at each other. Both of their eyes were shining with unshed tears and raw, unguarded feeling. Neither of them spoke for a long, suspended moment. The air was thick but not uncomfortable—full, heavy with a truth finally spoken aloud, a bridge not just in a song, but between them, now irrevocably crossed. He reached up and tucked a strand of her damp hair behind her ear, his thumb lingering on the apple of her cheek, catching a single tear that escaped.

He broke the silence finally, his voice a little hoarse. “We should… get up. Get freshened up. And then start on the next track—I actually have some ideas, if you want to hear them. Maybe we could grab some lunch after. In a nice restaurant. With menus and chairs and other people. Like an official date. A real one. If you want. If that’s not too—”

Chaeryeong laughed—that bright, unguarded, bell-like sound he’d come to love. “That all sounds perfect. All of it. Except—” She shifted slightly, winced, and then grinned up at him, a playful, satisfied spark in her eyes. “—I don’t think I can walk two steps right now without falling over. You might have to carry me to the shower. And maybe to the restaurant. Possibly everywhere, for the rest of the day.”

June grinned, a wide, effortless smile that transformed his tired face. He was already shifting, carefully slipping out of her and gathering her limp, pliant body into his arms in one smooth motion. “I seem to recall carrying you up here. I’m getting good at it. It’s becoming my specialty.”

As he lifted her, she wrapped her arms around his neck, nuzzling into his shoulder, her voice sleepy and content. “Next track idea: ‘Stairway Fumbles.’ About a producer who almost dropped his artist on the stairs.”

“That’s a terrible title,” he chuckled, carrying her naked and glorious toward the bathroom.

“You’re right,” she sighed, feigning deep thought. “I’ll workshop it. Over chocolate.”

“I’ll buy hazelnut,” he said, nudging the bathroom door open with his foot.

“It’s a date,” she murmured, her eyes already drifting closed against his skin. “Our second one.”

He carried her into the steamy warmth soon to come, the bathroom door closing softly behind them. A moment later, the sound of water starting to run whispered through the thin walls. And then, faint but unmistakable, came the sound of one of them humming the bridge of “Amber Hours”—the new, perfect, hopeful bridge. A pause, and then the other voice joined in, harmonizing softly, effortlessly, a private duet for two.