Chapter Text
PULL IT TAUT ENOUGH AND IT WILL…SNAP
Shoes scraped across the floor, rapid breaths cutting through the shifting music—sharp, unwavering. In the chaos of an idol’s life, the practice room never changes. The monotone colors, pale lighting and scent of sweat can feel far more familiar to the eye than any shape of a stage or noise from the crowd, yet anyone who truly loves the job accepts the grueling reality of that learning curve.
Kei preferred this, though. The burn of his lungs and flare of muscles over the silence, the weight of too many things that lingered in a routine meant to ground his ever-fleeing thoughts. He knew his racing steps to practice weren’t just his eagerness to advance in his growing work, the tracks were finally taking real shape with the help of Heeseung and Jay’s recording session.
No—any of his friends would’ve called that bullshit to his face and labeled it what it was: Avoidance.
But, luckily for the perfectionist workaholic Idol, he had a very real, looming deadline—one everyone was aware of. They could send quick texts of concern or invites for a distraction and Yudai would reply, be it with humour or lovey-dovey emojis, yet Nicholas was in his last days before competitions, Taki dealt with a new wave of tests and Euijoo still was jumbling two gigs simultaneously.
Kei did what he did best: threw himself into his art. When submerged in it, he could mute the threats from his superiors, the lack of control and everything that’s too loud for his head to continue spinning around endlessly.
When the clock passed midnight, Kei finally yielded to his body’s pleas and laid down on the floor, humid t-shirt touching the cold floor and loud breaths filling the quiet. With his eyes closed, he mentally tracked the progress. There were five songs on the album, though he was hoping for six already done, and he was content with the progress of the first three dances, now needing a layer of perfecting touches to be called proper choreography.
It had just taken four consecutive days post his Saturday Nightmare™… Hurray.
Gradually he rolls over onto his side on the floor and a grunt ripped from him — pain and release merging together. He followed the movement by cursing loudly at nothing, before rising from the ground at the speed of a hastily motivated sloth.
Things gathered in hands and a disheveled appearance, Kei switched off the lights. Just as the door clicks shut, he feels it—another presence. His eyes fly to the nearby wall that leads just beyond the main corridor and stop. Momentarily frozen.
Murata Fuma was there, standing in silence. His long-sleeve cardigan framed his lean figure, the neckline loose enough to show defined lines of his collarbones and soft looking pale skin. A small brand logo sitting just over his heart, subtle, while the dark colors feel almost stark against the greys of the walls. Fuma wasn’t even looking at him; his sharp gaze was fixed on the untied lace of Kei’s sneaker, attempting ease like the rest of his body language. But his presence alone sends tension racing down Yudai’s spine.
He can’t do this. Not while full of dry sweat stuck on his skin, itching, aching, hair swept back, baggy dance clothes only the mirror had seen him wear and his very soul craving to be sleeping by this time. Not as he looks like the mess he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t feel. It’s too vulnerable, too real. And he can’t.
Except it was too late, the invisible timer Yudai set in motion is stopped by Fuma without his say, though the truth would quickly point its accusing finger at the selfish decision to start running in the first place—away from the patient, steady man waiting for him now. The other is here—and maybe it’s the lack of noise, or the weight of being watched—but Fuma lifts his head.
Their eyes meet and lock.
They don’t say a word. Whatever showed behind their gaze was unclear, but something kept their incomprehensible conversation alive.
Neither looked away.
As the dancer shifts his weight, Kei’s words escape from his closing throat. “What are you doing here?”
The rasp in his tone fitted the rest of him—wrecked, undone. Fuma’s eyebrows lift, just a millimeter, in what might be worry. Or concern.
He answered honestly anyway. “I asked Nicholas, he said you’d probably still be here at his team’s place and gave me the address.”
Of course Nicholas would do it. Goddamn.
The Idol’s jaw clenched. “Ah, sure.”
“You vanished, for more than a couple of days,” the other’s low voice adds, “Taki-kun said he was worried about you in our class today so I thought…” and he trailed off, blinking lightly looking unsure before he crunched his nose and looked away too quick to disguise the hint of embarrassment. “Well, to come by, I guess.”
His airy chuckle filled the space and Yudai doesn’t know if he wants to slap Fuma for looking like that, all careful approach, cute nose scrunch and soft hotness while himself is a sweaty disaster holding to the seams, or to choke the life out of Wang Yixiang for blabbing.
God. Damn it.
With a deep sigh, Kei pulled himself together, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. The way the new weight almost made him flinch and his fingers snagged the strap was frustrating, but he keeps moving like nothing is wrong. He combed through his wild strands, if only to avoid Fuma’s eyes as he stepped away, forcing his feet to know their way out of the premises as unsteady as they were.
Words rush out in his native tongue, "I'm alive. Busy, but alive. Tell Taki and Nicho I'm done for the day, no visitors needed, thanks." He didn’t wait for a reply. But Fuma followed anyway, his steps syncing with Yudai’s like they’re choreographed.
The warmth at his back is suffocating. Maddening.
Just keep walking, Koga Yudai.
He passed reception quietly, unable to try and give his usual teasing farewell to Lin, the punk-esque receptionist who always mutters an embarrassed one back despite their “too cool for work” aesthetic.
He kept walking.
The only things registering on his mind were physical. The uncomfortable tingle under his skin. Clothes and things weighing down on him. The night air hitting his skin, making him shiver. The sound of light steps, loud as shattering glass that reached his side far too quickly. When Kei risked a glance towards it, he caught Fuma’s irises lingering on him, a gaze that burns where it lands—noticing the tremor of his body he no longer had the energy to hide.
“Let me give you a ride home,” the other said, certain but not unkind.
He let out a dry chuckle, bitter and oh so tired. “If you're trying to be a good samaritan or something, fuck right off. I’m not a charity case.”
Fuma stepped a tad closer, his shadow blending with Kei’s in the pavement. “Come on, you’re shaking.”
Kei opened his mouth to refuse… but closed it, the protest dying as another shiver racked his frame. A sigh. Maybe it was the sequence of unforeseeable events all together. Maybe it was the sheer exhaustion taking over. Either way, the idol accepted the invitation with a nod and walked behind Murata sluggishly, albeit refusing his silent offer to carry the weight he bears and still with a chin held high.
Fuma’s lips pressed together, but he didn't insist. Instead, he slowed his pace—just enough for Yudai to match it without stumbling.
Internally, he wanted to pull his hair out. To scream loud enough for every insomniac in Seoul to hear.
Externally, he stepped into the hatchback in silence. His seatbelt dug into his white-knuckled grip, his backpack a lead weight at his feet.
The tension stretched further.
The lifeless murmur of his hotel’s address was the only sound between them. Even at 3 a.m., Seoul’s sky pulsed with pale streaks and flickering lights—proof that the city never sleeps. Kei traced the outlines of passing cars with vacant eyes, finding a flimsy semblance of peace in the relentless speed of South Korea.
He could hold out until they reached the hotel.
As long as the quiet held on too.
Hopefully, the man beside him—with his subtle but piercing glances—understood how badly he needed that silence.
Koga Yudai felt like freshly finished kintsugi: shattered pottery glued together too soon, the gold still wet and unstable, closer to being pieces than a steady piece of art.
It would be foolish to think he was a pot never broken before—maybe years back, when life was simple, the fear of smashing to pieces would mean anything.
No, actually, perhaps he was more like a pet project of a particularly clumsy artist. Someone who kept placing sculptures on sliding surfaces without thinking. Who never gave the gold enough time to settle and mend properly… So it broke off. Again and again.
Was there even a single author of this damage?
Were his own hands free of guilt, when he’d been the one to give that final push toward the floor before? When he’s the one who immediately drops gold into the seams, and holds it there with enough practice—enough force—that it glues into shape?
The gentle shift from static road to movement alerts Yudai: they’ve arrived.
A minimal jolt from the brakes as Fuma eased the car into an open spot pulls him out of metaphor and straight back into the reality of aching muscles. Kei controlled his response, letting only a single sharp inhale slip through—too quick for Murata to catch as he turned off the engine. A beat passed, the tension steeping in the silence between them. Their glances last no more than a second or two, but possibilities hang in the air, waiting to unfold depending on whose unspoken words come first.
Once Yudai decided that actions feel clearer than any aimless thanks. His fingers loosened their grip on the seatbelt and reached for the buckle—surprisingly steady. But as he reaches for his bag, Fuma makes his choice, too.
“You should try to hold off from the kind of practice that leaves you in this state.”
The words land like a slap. Not as concern. Not as care. Just as another polished judgment from someone watching from the sidelines. Kei hears “you’re reckless, you’re immature, you don’t know what’s best for yourself” louder than he can hear his own heartbeat. They all get to have an opinion, get to prod and crack. As if they’re above it all—untouchable. And now Fuma says it too, like he’s just a the type of calm to never break the way Kei does.
It’s the final tug that snaps a fraying cable—one tug too many.
Anger rises like a tidal wave, a furious surge that covers everything in its path. It drowns the shards of pottery in boiling seawater, obliterates the careful gold seams.
“What do you know? Everyone likes to have a say—on my schedule, my work ethic, my wishes, my fucking existence! Who the fuck are all of you to say shit?!”
Kei’s voice lashes out, as violent as the wave inside him. He surges forward, leaning into Murata’s space—hoping the heat of his fury will burn him. Let it scorch. Let it hurt. How fucking dare he.
Murata leaned back in his seat, trying to make space in the cramped car, but his dark irises didn't show even a flicker of fear. He meets Kei’s stare, unwavering. In the hush of the only sounds are Yudai’s erratic breathing and the oppressive silence pressing in around them, sealing them into the moment like a vacuum.
Then, Fuma answers. Slowly. Clearly. Every word enunciated with an unshakable calm.
“I’m not trying to have a say in anything. But training until you strain, dancing until you collapse—those aren’t things we can afford. Passion doesn’t burn away basic health, Kei-ssi.”
But Yudai couldn’t swallow his words, he shaked his head vehemently. He threw his body back towards his seat angrily, forgetting all of the physical pain and empty resolve as Murata’s words feel like another thread that leads nowhere, mocking his sanity with empty promises. “No. I’m not hearing this from you. Murata Fuma—the man too ‘humble,’ or whatever other fucking lie, doesn’t earn the right to say this.”
His brown eyes glanced outside the window full of disdain, long strands sticking to his forehead and prickling in a way that his fingers' harsh attempts of fixing it was useless to solve. With folded arms and trembling knees, Kei couldn't stop the wave of emotions spilling from his cracks. No, he was done. Done with the hypocrisy. Done with the moral high grounds. Done with Fuma’s lack of words. The ambiguity that has led Kei to conclusions the other’s too afraid to prove true, to show he indeed understands his drive, his passion, instead of pretending to.
He may be running from the impact that lingers in the moments they share space, but Murata Fuma is not innocent in any fucking way.
“I won’t accept it. These are throwaways, just like the polite dismissals I got when I challenged you. I guess being a coward stings less when you can cover it in layers of bullshit, huh?” He says full of bite, throat scraping in a humourless chuckle that could cut deep into bone.
A tense quiet follows, the empty parking lot filled with them, both muted in the dimness of the car.
It is in that pause when all the layers of pain and fatigue once again coerce Yudai's body into becoming useless, willing it to dissolve into the car seat to seek relief.
The force of the words that have left his mouth joins the coating of uncomfortable feelings, a poison that perhaps Kei shouldn't even have let spill from his lips in the first place.
The strain shifts as the sound of an exasperated breath is nearly as loud as a gunshot in the dullness.
While Kei refuses to shift to see it, his senses heighten to hear the way Fuma weakly hits the roof of the car with a closed fist along the breathing motion. It breaks part of the blinding fervor, a layer of disbelief thickens in the air of their contained space.
The idol had never seen such a strong hint of emotion from him, everything seems so unclear or passive with Murata that watching him, out of the corner of his eye, bring a hand to his forehead in a frustrated touch is so abrupt it's close to being mesmerizing.
The dancer beside him grabbed his full attention with such small movements, Kei’s body naturally turns and Fuma doesn't wait before shifting as well, only concisely, with purpose. His features paint a serious picture, focused, "If it's what it fucking takes, I'll accept.”
The Idol felt as if his voice physically latched onto Yudai’s skin and pulled it in further which made sure he would hear it, “Next week, we'll solve this in Nicholas-san's studio and until then you stop trying to drown yourself in work, unless you want to lose the respect I have for you as an artist Yudai-san."
And nothing follows.
The end of an explosion can only be the absence of sound, which emphasizes the extent of its violence.
In the limited space between the two, only the remains of an eruption remain while both try to study each other soberly.
Finally, his words were the answer that had hovered unspoken between them, quelling the suffocating desire Yudai felt from the moment he first saw the dance teacher, but Koga failed to react beyond a slow subdue nod before climbing out of the vehicle with his things.
Dullness filled the path towards his room, yellow lights hollowed out and steps so wobbly the collapse to his bed was unavoidable. Kei didn’t wait for more than the sound of Fuma’s engine start before leaving, moving away from rethinking his words, the emotion that stained someone else for the first time in who knows how long.
The challenge he hoped for now is a reality to face… It felt thrilling and dreadful at the same time.
A jolt of adrenaline to the competitive part of his brain, a needle that hits the vein feeding his need to prove his skills, his dance and the self that rightfully overshadows his other facets that is the one enthralled in music.
It also felt like a step into something perhaps too dangerous, if the first clash they’ve ever had was so raw and hard to fully grasp, nothing guarantees Kei will come out of an encounter like this unscathed. Far worse, it’s to be expected, with the way Murata Fuma ties knots in his mind and unravels them just as easily, Koga Yudai knows he’s headed for a collision with more than just a dance form.
Both sides are keys that jumpstart his heart rate with a scary precision, one he’d never think possible for a person to have over him.