Syncopation | Yeongyu TXT

21

The room feels smaller tonight. Walls pressing in like they're wired with the static still buzzing in Beomgyu's veins. His laptop screen glares back at him, cursor blinking over the contest portal like a pulse he can't ignore.

Deadline: 23 hours left.
Song: This Is My Answer.

He exhales slow through his teeth, dragging the file into the submission box with fingers that don't feel steady. A hollow click seals it, the confirmation email popping like confetti on his screen. There. Done. His shot at studio time—the thing he's been clawing toward for months—is now out in the void.

And yet, he feels nothing but tired.

Beomgyu leans back in the chair, eyes skimming the video file sitting in the corner of his desktop like a dare. The live take Taehyun recorded before everything went to hell at that café. Just him, a stool, a guitar, and every ounce of truth he's been choking on since this storm began.

He drags the cursor over it. Hesitates.

Posting it now feels like throwing kerosene on an inferno that's already trending in every corner of the internet. His name is probably sitting in hashtags next to Yeonjun's, slathered in theories and edits dissecting every breath they took today. Do they need more fuel? Does he?

His gut twists. He hears the slap again—feels it echo down his arm like phantom heat. The words he spit at Yeonjun come back raw and jagged.

If you can't handle being overshadowed, THEN DON'T FUCKING GET ON STAGES.

God. How did it get this bad?

He didn't start this war. Yeonjun did—every jab, every poke, every smug little smirk that made Beomgyu feel like an exposed nerve under fluorescent lights. But he finished it, didn't he? In front of a café full of cameras. And now, he's sitting here debating whether to throw the match that could set the whole internet ablaze.

"You're doing that thing again," Taehyun says from the bed without looking up, thumbs flicking across his phone. "Staring at the screen like it owes you money."

Beomgyu doesn't answer. Just digs his nails into the fabric of his hoodie and keeps his eyes pinned to the file.

Taehyun glances up, reads him like sheet music in one glance. "You want to post it."

Beomgyu flinches. "I'm... thinking."

"You're spiraling," Taehyun corrects, dropping his phone onto the comforter. "Difference is, spiraling looks like you arguing with yourself in surround sound."

Beomgyu groans, tipping his head back against the chair. "I don't know if I should, okay? After—today..." His throat closes around the word. He scrubs a hand down his face. "Feels like baiting more shit."

Taehyun shrugs. "You're an artist, not a PR rep. But if you were? You'd know scandals get clicks, and clicks get streams."

Beomgyu shoots him a flat look. "I'm not taming attention for good. That's gross."

"Didn't say you were." Taehyun's tone is maddeningly casual. "Just saying, people are already watching. Might as well give them something that's yours. Not their circus."

Beomgyu bites his lip hard enough to taste iron. His fingers hover over the mouse, muscles locked. He hates this—this chokehold of fear and pride and shame tangling in his chest. He hates that Yeonjun's voice is still there in his head, sharp as glass. Scared of stages, huh, Princess?

And maybe that's what does it. That one word. Princess. Like he's some fragile, breakable thing.

Taehyun's voice cuts in, soft but sharp: "Don't be a coward, Gyu."