ᴘᴀʀᴀʟʟᴇʟ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛꜱ | 𝚈𝚊𝚗𝚐 𝙽𝚊𝚛𝚊

The One with The Unraveling Threads 💕

Bold - English
Normal - Korean
_______________________

The hum of the practice room was different tonight.

The speakers still pulsed with rhythm. Sneakers still squeaked across the wooden floor. Laughter still rang from the corner where the younger trainees rehearsed harmonies. But beneath the familiar noise was a subtle, electric current-tense, quiet, and thrumming with everything left unsaid.

It was in the way Taeyong's shoulders were held just a little too straight as he adjusted the sound levels. It was in the flicker of Jaehyun's gaze toward the mirrors, where his eyes lingered too long on the reflection of a certain figure across the room. And it was most sharply in Johnny, arms crossed near the doorway, his usual calm replaced with something unreadable-something tight behind his eyes.

They were all spread out. Not by coincidence. Not by the flow of practice. But by choice.

Distance had become a necessary buffer.

Because she was laughing again.

Nara sat on the floor with the younger trainees-Jisung, Mark, Renjun-all gathered around her in a semi-circle as they worked through the layered vocals of the showcase song. She was pointing out runs, correcting posture, clapping for high notes. When Mark made a dramatic vocal swoop that earned groans and laughter, Nara threw her head back and laughed so freely that it pierced through the room like sunlight cracking through clouds.

Her voice was clear. Familiar. Comforting.

But now it twisted.

It twisted because of the man who had walked through the studio doors the day before.

Nathan Yang.

The name echoed differently now-no longer just a distant figure from her vague mentions. He had arrived in real time, in real space, and with a presence that shifted the entire room's gravity.

Her brother.

The one she had never spoken of in detail. The one she had protected like a secret. The one who had embraced her so instinctively that it made every glance, every touch, every shared inside joke feel suddenly shallow in comparison.

They had seen her glow before-but not like that. Not like the moment she saw him.

That joy, that familiarity... it was something the rest of them had never truly been part of.

And that realization settled like weight in the air-subtle, suffocating.

---

"You're still brooding," a voice interrupted, dry and amused.

Jaehyun blinked as Doyoung appeared beside him, tossing a towel at his chest. The younger man caught it reflexively.

Doyoung folded his arms, scanning the trio now scattered across the room like broken magnets.

"I've seen breakups with less tension," he muttered, voice low. "Let me guess-this has something to do with our Miss Mysterious and her equally mysterious family tree?"

Jaehyun sighed, wiping the sweat from his jaw. "It's not like she lied. But still..."

"But she didn't tell us," Johnny finished, his voice cutting in from across the room. "That's the part that's hard to ignore."

"She didn't owe us that," Yuta said quietly from the edge of the sound system. "Not really."

Taeyong was silent, perched beside the speaker system, arms resting on his knees. His gaze wasn't on anyone. Just the floor.