His fingers found new keys, the melody shifting into something darker, more desperate, his brow furrowing with concentration as the music evolved. "Like this?"
"Yes." I leaned closer, drawn by the music, by him, my shoulder nearly brushing his. "Exactly like that." This was how it went. He'd play something, and I'd feel the words rise up in response. I'd suggest a lyric, and he'd translate it into sound before I'd finished speaking. It was like we were having a conversation in a language I'd never learned but somehow always knew.
"I've never worked like this." I admitted during a brief pause, watching him scribble notes onto a fresh page, his handwriting sharp and precise even when he was rushing. "With someone else, I mean. I always thought collaboration would feel like compromise and have to loose alot of what I put into my work."
"And does it?" He looked up at me, pen still poised over the paper, his dark hair falling across his forehead in a way that made my fingers itch to brush it back.
"No." I shook my head slowly, trying to find the right words for something I didn't fully understand, my gaze drifting to the mixing board and back. "It feels like... finding pieces I didn't know were missing."
Something shifted in his expression — a crack in that careful composure he always wore, something raw and hopeful breaking through. "That's how it feels for me too. With you."
The studio suddenly felt smaller. Warmer. The violet bond hummed between us, and I was acutely aware of how close we were sitting — our knees almost touching, our breath mixing in the small space.
"Can I ask you something?" I pulled my knees up, wrapping my arms around them like a shield between us, needing something to hold onto.
"Anything." He set down his pen, giving me his full attention in that way he had — like nothing else in the world existed except this moment, this conversation, me.
"Why do people think you're cold?" I watched his face carefully as I asked it, looking for the flinch, the shutdown, the walls going up. "I've read the comments online. They call you the 'ice prince.' Say you're unapproachable."
For a long moment, he didn't answer. Then he let out a breath that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him, his shoulders dropping slightly as tension released.
"Because I don't know how to show what I feel." His voice was quiet, almost lost in the hum of equipment around us, his gaze dropping to his hands. "I feel everything — too much, probably. Every emotion hits me like a wave, and I never learned how to let it show on my face. So people assume there's nothing there." He paused, his jaw tightening as he looked back up at me. "It's easier to let them think that. Being cold is simpler than being misunderstood."
"I understand that." I said it softly, recognition settling heavy in my chest, the weight of shared experience pressing against my ribs. "I've spent years building walls so high that people stopped trying to climb them. It's lonely, but it's safe. Or it feels safe, anyway."
"But it's not." Jin-ho leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his face closer to mine than it had been all day, close enough that I could see the different shades of brown in his eyes. "Safe is just another word for alone. And alone is just another word for slowly dying inside."
The words hit me like cold water — jarring and clarifying all at once.
"You sound like you've thought about this a lot." My voice came out rougher than I intended, thick with emotion I hadn't meant to show.
"I've lived it." His dark eyes held mine, and I saw something there I recognized — the same loneliness I'd been carrying since my mother died, reflected back at me like a mirror. "Until the pack found each other, I spent years convinced I was broken. That there was something wrong with me because I couldn't connect the way other people did." He paused, something painful flickering across his features, a muscle jumping in his jaw. "Then I realized it wasn't that I couldn't connect. It was that I was waiting for someone worth connecting to."
"And now?" I barely breathed the question, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"Now I'm looking at her." He said it simply, like it was obvious, like it was the most natural thing in the world, his gaze unwavering on mine.
My heart stopped. Then started again, hammering so hard I was sure he could hear it.
"Jin-ho..." I didn't know what I was going to say. His name felt like the only word I could form, the only thing my brain could process.
"I'm going to kiss you now." He said it the same way Hwan had, but different — quieter, more intense, like he was telling me a secret instead of asking a question, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "If you want me to stop, say so."
I didn't say anything. He closed the distance between us slowly, giving me time to pull away, to change my mind, to run like I always did. His hand came up to cup my jaw, his fingers cool against my flushed skin, and then his lips were on mine.
This kiss was nothing like Hwan's.
Hwan's kiss had been sunshine — warm and bright and joyful, full of laughter barely contained. Jin-ho's kiss was twilight — deep and consuming and endless, pulling me under before I realized I was drowning. His mouth moved against mine with devastating precision, every touch deliberate, every angle calculated for maximum impact.
I made a sound I didn't recognize — something between a gasp and a moan — and felt him shudder in response. His other hand found my hip, pulling me closer, and I went willingly, my fingers tangling in his hair the way I'd wanted to earlier. The bond blazed to life in my chest, so bright it almost hurt. I could taste his scent on my tongue — rain and old books and something darker underneath, something that made my omega want to bare her throat and surrender completely.
He deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding against mine, and I lost track of everything except the feel of him, the taste of him, the overwhelming rightness of being exactly here, exactly now, with exactly this person.
Then something shifted. He pulled back suddenly, breathing hard, his eyes scanning my face with an intensity that made me want to hide, his pupils blown wide.
"Your scent changed." His voice was rough, strained with effort, his chest rising and falling rapidly. "Just now. There's uncertainty in it."
I blinked at him, still dazed, still trying to remember how to form words. "I don't?—"
