I nodded, my heart doing something complicated in my chest, too many emotions tangled together to name. "Tomorrow."
He released my hand and walked toward the hallway, leaving me standing in the living room with the violet bond pulsing steadily beside the golden amber.
Two down. Three to go.
I was starting to think that maybe — just maybe — I wasn't as afraid of what came next as I used to be.
Chapter Twenty-Two
KEIRA
Jin-ho's studio smelled like rain and old books. I noticed it the moment he opened the door — that deep, mysterious scent that had haunted me since our first meeting at Narvi Entertainment. It wrapped around me like fog, pulling me forward into the dim space before I'd consciously decided to move.
"It's not much." Jin-ho stepped aside to let me enter, his voice low and measured as always, one hand gesturing toward the interior with understated pride. "But it's mine."
He was wrong. It was everything.
The studio was small but perfectly arranged — soundproofing on the walls, a mixing board that looked like it cost more than my apartment, instruments tucked into every corner. A keyboard. Two guitars, one acoustic and one electric. A violin case propped against the wall that surprised me. Notebooks were stacked on every available surface, their pages bristling with sticky notes and loose papers covered in his sharp handwriting.
"You play violin?" I crossed to the case, running my fingers over the worn leather, feeling the history embedded in its scuffs and scratches.
"Since I was seven." He moved to his chair at the mixing board, settling into it with the ease of someone who spent most of his life in this exact spot, his long fingers trailing absently over the faders. "My mother insisted. She wanted me to be 'cultured.'" He made air quotes with his fingers, a hint of dry humor softening his usually stoic expression. "I hated it for years. Then I loved it. Now I only play when I need to think."
"Do you need to think often?" I turned to face him, leaning against the wall beside the violin case, crossing my arms loosely over my chest.
"Constantly." He met my eyes, and something flickered in those dark depths — amusement, maybe, or something sadder, harder to name. "It's exhausting, actually. The thinking. I can't seem to turn it off."
I understood that more than he knew.
"So." Jin-ho leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking softly as he studied me with that intense gaze that always made me feel like he was reading the parts of me I kept hidden. "We have two options for today. I can show you my process — let you watch me work, explain how I compose. Or..." He paused, something shifting in his expression, a crack in the careful neutrality. "Or we can actually work. Together."
"What do you mean?" I pushed off from the wall, curiosity drawing me closer to him, my feet carrying me across the small space before I'd made the conscious decision to move.
"You have a deadline." He said it matter-of-factly, no judgment in his tone, just observation, his dark eyes steady on mine. "The title track. You've been avoiding it since you got here."
I felt heat crawl up my neck at the accuracy of the statement. "How do you know I've been avoiding it?"
"Because I've read your lyrics." He reached for one of the notebooks on his desk, flipping it open to a page covered in my handwriting — copies he must have made from the files I'd submitted to the company. "These are good. Really good, but they're not finished. They stop right when they're about to become something extraordinary.”
I stared at the familiar words on the page, my chest tightening. He was right. I always stopped before the vulnerable part. Before the lyrics became too honest, too revealing, too much of myself on the page.
"I don't know how to finish them." The admission slipped out before I could stop it, quiet and raw in the dim studio, my voice smaller than I wanted it to be.
"Yes, you do." Jin-ho set the notebook down and turned to face me fully, his dark eyes holding mine with an intensity that made it hard to breathe, his jaw set with quiet certainty. "You're just afraid to."
The words landed like a blow — accurate and inescapable.
"What if we finished them together?" He asked it carefully, like he was offering something precious and fragile, his voice dropping lower as he leaned slightly forward in his chair. "Your words, my music. We could see what happens when they meet."
The bond pulsed in my chest, warm and wanting. This was what he'd promised last night. This was what I'd been nervous about all morning.
"Okay." I heard myself say, the word coming out steadier than I felt, surprising us both. "Let's try."
Two hours later, I understood why Jin-ho had been SIREN's primary songwriter since their debut. He worked like nothingI'd ever seen — fingers dancing across the keyboard, humming melodies under his breath, scribbling notes in a shorthand only he could read. But he never worked alone. Every few minutes, he'd turn to me with a question.
"This line — 'drowning in the echo of your voice' — what comes after drowning?" He played a chord progression, letting the notes hang in the air between us, his head tilted as he waited for my response. "What's the next feeling?"
"Surrender." I said it without thinking, the word pulled from somewhere deep in my chest, surprising me with its certainty. "After drowning comes surrender. Giving up the fight."
