✓ FRAGILE HOURS ✷ Woozi

THE BACKSPACE FILES.

Her typing continues between songs, the click of keys threading through the thud of sneakers and bursts of laughter.

By the time Hoshi calls the last run, the air in the room is heavy with sweat and coffee and the faint metallic bite of the AC. The members scatter in loose groups, tugging on dry shirts, swapping jokes.

Minwoo’s already packing her laptop when Jihoon toes off his sneakers. They fall into step without deciding to.

The hall is cooler, quieter. Somewhere far off, another group is still practicing, muffled through closed doors.

Outside, the air smells faintly of rain. She’s still wrestling her zipper closed when he reaches over without thinking, tugging her scarf higher around her neck.

She looks up, but his hands are already shoved into his pockets, gaze forward.

Above them the stars watch on, eternal and untouchable. 

• • •

#2

The studio is barely lit, a hush settling over every corner like dust. Only the blue glow of the monitor keeps the room from sinking into full darkness, painting soft shadows across tangled cables and coffee-stained notebooks. Outside the windows, the city hasn’t quite decided to wake — no sun yet, just a dull steel sky hovering behind the glass.

A looped melody drifts through the air, half-formed. Something delicate, stitched together with bare piano chords and the occasional flicker of synth. Jihoon listens to it play for the seventh — maybe eighth — time, elbow propped on the desk, fingers hovering above the keys like he might fix something, but doesn’t.

Behind him, the couch shifts.

A rustle of fabric. A breath catching. The sound of someone waking slow.

Minwoo curls in on herself, one arm tucked under her cheek. Her hair’s a mess, flattened on one side from sleep. A blanket — not hers — is wrapped around her shoulders, slightly too neatly to have ended up that way on its own. One edge hangs just off the couch cushion, barely grazing the floor.

She groans softly into the pillow, voice thick with sleep. “What time is it?”

Jihoon doesn’t turn. His eyes stay on the screen, the movement of light over his face steady, undistracted.

“You drooled,” he says instead.

A beat.

“I didn’t,” she mutters, muffled.

“Left side.”

Minwoo sits up, squinting. She touches her cheek, fingers dragging lightly over skin. It’s dry. Clean. She narrows her eyes at the back of his head.

Then, without much force, she picks up a throw pillow and chucks it in his direction.

It sails lazily across the space — an underwhelming arc born of half-asleep irritation — and Jihoon catches it without looking, one hand snapping up at the last second like he’s done this before.

“Thanks,” he says, tucking the pillow over his lap casually.

She slouches back into the couch, arms crossed under the blanket. Her voice is dry, but not sharp.