Syncopation | Yeongyu TXT

14

It's only when Beomgyu lifts his left hand that Taehyun notices the dark smudge along his fingertips. He frowns, reaching out and catching his wrist before Beomgyu can hide it.

"What the hell—are you bleeding?"

Beomgyu glances at his hand like he forgot it was even attached to him. "It's just the strings. I didn't notice."

"You didn't—" Taehyun cuts himself off, biting down hard on the sharpness climbing his throat. "Unbelievable."

Beomgyu just shrugs one shoulder, too drained to care. Then, after a beat, he says quietly, almost like an afterthought:

"I wrote something today. Lyrics."

Taehyun blinks. "...What?"

"For the contest." Beomgyu looks down at the kimbap in his hands, voice soft, distant. "It's called This Is My Answer."

The name hangs between them like a thread, fragile and heavy all at once.

Taehyun wants to ask what the lyrics say. Wants to tell him he's proud, that he's brilliant, that the world doesn't deserve him.
But the words wedge in his throat. So instead, he just nudges the roll closer and says, quieter than before.

"Eat first. Talk later."

Beomgyu nods once, silent, and takes another bite.

And Taehyun sits there, pretending his hands aren't still shaking in his lap.

The city hums outside his window, neon streaking the glass in restless colors. Cars hiss along wet asphalt far below, their headlights smearing into ribbons.

Yeonjun stands in the quiet of his apartment, pulling the black bomber jacket from his shoulders. The same jacket that had soaked through with sweat hours ago, now smelling faintly of detergent and ambition. He smooths the fabric with precise fingers before sliding it onto the hanger, lining it up with surgical neatness beside the rest of his wardrobe; blacks, grays, a riot of statement pieces folded into disciplined rows.

Every piece is curated. Intentional. Like everything else about him.

The outfit for tomorrow's Fact Check cover joins the line like another chess piece slotted into place.

He crosses to his desk. It greets him with order—no stray papers, no chaos. Just his laptop glowing faint blue, a neat stack of choreo notebooks, and one thing that's been staring him down for days; an application window, sitting open like a challenge.

RhythmWorks Studios – Choreographer Program Submission
Portfolio: Uploaded
Resume: Uploaded
Cover Letter: Drafted, cursor blinking like a heartbeat against the empty white box.

Yeonjun drags a chair out and sinks into it slowly, elbows braced on the edge of the desk. His reflection stares back at him in the black glass of the window, hair still damp from a late shower, jaw sharp under soft shadows. He looks like someone who wins. Someone who knows how to stay ahead.

But the thought that follows makes his stomach knot tight. Winning doesn't last unless you fight for it.

BeatLine has been his empire—built from scratch with grit and glitter, performance after performance until his name was stamped like a watermark across every campus stage. The academy gave him a crown, sure. But crowns here are paper. Temporary. The stage he really wants is bigger—corporate studio floors, branded choreography credits, the kind of name-drop that cements you in the industry before twenty-five.

RhythmWorks is that step.
And he's so close he can taste it—young, ambitious, standing on the edge of the cliff and ready to leap.

The thought makes him grin, a slow, sharp curl of satisfaction.
Not just a dancer.
Not just campus royalty.
A choreographer with weight behind his name.