Syncopation | Yeongyu TXT

20

"Careful, Princess. You think you're the only one drowning out here? At least I don't hide behind strings because I'm scared of breaking."

The words leave his mouth before he can leash them. A cruel, instinctive strike—aimed blind, but it hits. Hard.

Because Beomgyu flinches like he's been gutted.

Taehyun moves first, voice a blade of ice. "Yeonjun." A warning. A plea. Maybe both. But it's too late.

Something shatters in Beomgyu's eyes—something brittle snapping under the weight of everything he's been holding back. His breath stutters once, sharp and shallow. Then his hand moves.

The slap lands like a gunshot.

Hot, sharp, ringing through the café so loud it swallows every whisper whole. Yeonjun's head whips sideways, skin stinging, ears thrumming with the aftermath. For a second, he just stands there—breathless, stunned—his own pulse pounding like bass in his throat.

Beomgyu's chest heaves, eyes blazing like wildfire licking through the cracks of a porcelain mask. His voice is a rasped snarl, every syllable soaked in venom and hurt.

"Don't. Ever. Talk like you know me."

Silence crushes the room, thick and choking. The only sound is Yeonjun's heartbeat, hammering against the cage of his ribs as he straightens slow—too slow—and meets Beomgyu's glare with something unreadable, something dark and molten and aching like a bruise that refuses to fade.

Taehyun's voice slices through the static, brittle with fury. "We're leaving." His hand clamps on Beomgyu's arm, anchoring him before the storm eats him alive. Beomgyu doesn't resist. He just tears his gaze away, sharp as a blade—and for the first time, Yeonjun feels what it's like to lose the oxygen in a room.

The door slams behind them. Cameras flash like lightning in their wake. The whispers surge, a tidal wave swallowing everything whole.

Yeonjun stands there, cheek burning, jaw tight, a smile curling slow—soft, savage, laced with something he doesn't want to name.

Because beneath the sting of his skin and the taste of iron on his tongue, one truth thrums like a beat he can't unhear.

He's in way too deep.

The walk back is a blur.

Not because the streets are quiet—they're not. Phones are still raised, faces still turned, whispers trailing like smoke. But Beomgyu doesn't hear any of it. Can't. His ears are ringing too loud, like cymbals crashing against his skull, drowning out the world in white-hot static. His hand still tingles where it connected with Yeonjun's cheek, phantom heat pulsing down his arm like aftershocks.

Taehyun doesn't speak. Just keeps a vice grip on his wrist, steering him through the crowd like a tether keeping him from snapping clean in half. His silence is sharp, controlled, but Beomgyu can feel the tension bleeding off him in waves—the rigid set of his jaw, the way his steps hit the pavement like hammer blows.

They reach the dorm. The door clicks shut behind them, sealing out the murmurs, the flashing lights, the world.

And then—silence.

Not the soft, breathable kind. The heavy, suffocating kind that hums like an exposed wire, thick with everything unsaid.

Beomgyu stands there, chest heaving like he ran a mile instead of walked four blocks. The taste of metal clings to his tongue—memory or metaphor, he can't tell. His hands won't stop shaking. From anger. From adrenaline. From something else clawing up his ribs, raw and choking.