Syncopation | Yeongyu TXT

12

Yeonjun sees it. Drinks it in slow. Laughs low in his throat.
"What? No cute alias this time? What was it—Choi Taekbae?" A pause. The smirk widens like a slit in silk. "Funny. You kept the Choi part. Little sloppy, don't you think?"

The blood drains from Beomgyu's face. His tongue sticks dry to his teeth.

Yeonjun leans in—not close enough to touch, but close enough to let the words slice clean.
"Choi Beomgyu."

Every letter lands like a nail.

"How—" Beomgyu's voice breaks on the first syllable.

Yeonjun shrugs, wolfish grin flashing.
"Your friend screamed it last time. You flinched. And then there's your username—'beomnote'? Not exactly stealth mode."

Beomgyu swallows hard, throat scraping dry.

"Why bother hiding?" Yeonjun goes on, easy, merciless. "You're in a band now. People are gonna know. Unless..." A beat. "You want me to leak a fake stage name for you? Taekbae has a ring to it."

"Go to hell."

"Already here," Yeonjun says, grinning like the devil handing out maps.

Beomgyu grips his bag strap until the canvas bites his palm.
"I hate you."

"You wish," Yeonjun says lightly, pivoting back toward the hall. Then—over his shoulder, voice low enough to crawl under skin, he says,
"See you around, Beomgyu."

And just like that, he's gone.
Leaving Beomgyu in a room that suddenly feels too small for breathing.

The corridor hums behind him, faint with the ghost of strings and a breath that broke too sharp to be casual.

Yeonjun slides his hands into his pockets, steps slow, grin cutting clean through the dim like a blade that's tasted blood.
Victory tastes good. But not as good as the sound of his name catching in Beomgyu's throat like a wound.

Beomgyu.
Soft vowels. Hard edges. Fits better on the tongue than Taekbae ever did.

He'd guessed hours ago.
The puzzle wasn't hard—just messy.
The username: beomnote. Too neat to be random.
The alias: Choi Taekbae. Sloppy as hell. Who picks a fake name and keeps their real surname?
And then that day in the hallway—the way the air cracked when someone yelled it.
Beomgyu froze like a deer in headlights. Flinch sharp enough to stick in memory.

Yeonjun didn't confirm it then. Didn't need to. He wanted the moment for later. Wanted to watch it hit.

And oh, it hit.

The way color drained from his face. The tremor under all that brittle sarcasm.
Perfect. Delicious.

Not because Yeonjun's cruel.
Okay—maybe a little.
But mostly because control looks different on Beomgyu.
It doesn't fit. It cracks at the seams. And Yeonjun likes watching the pieces shift, scatter, reform into something raw.

Why hide?
That's the real question chewing at him.
Because if Beomgyu wanted silence, he could've locked his account. Deleted his videos. Vanished clean.
But he didn't.
He posted.
He played.
He let the world bite and still bled music like it mattered more than fear.

Yeonjun knows that hunger.
It's in his own bones—the need to be seen, even when it burns.
Maybe that's why this doesn't feel like any rivalry he's ever had.
Because every time Beomgyu pulls back, Yeonjun just wants to drag him into the light harder.
To see what happens when he finally stops hiding.

He rounds the corner back to the studio, jaw flexing as the beat of Fact Check leaks through the door, heavy and sharp. His reflection catches in the glass—sweat-slick, smirk intact, but something darker glinting under it.