October 2022
The quiet hum of the hallway faded behind him, but its weight lingered. Mark hadn't said much after that night—not even to Haechan—but the ache had settled like a stone in his chest.
And halfway across the city, Lexie felt it too.
October had crept in with its usual chaos: comeback prep, trainee evaluations, back-to-back demo submissions for the upcoming winter album. Lexie moved through each schedule with mechanical precision, barely pausing to breathe, much less reflect. She kept her replies short, her days long, her inbox full, and her calendar even fuller.
It was easier that way.
Easier to get swallowed up in deadlines than sit with the memories that kept circling back.
The memories of him.
Mark's voice. Mark's silence.
Mark standing in her studio like a ghost with warm hands and a heartbeat she once memorized.
She hadn't spoken about it since. Not to Junny. Not to Matthew. Not even to herself.
But the file sat on her desktop—unfinished.
Lexie stared at the screen, one hand loosely gripping a stylus while her other hovered uncertainly over the console sliders. The instrumental looped softly through the speakers—warm synths, a suspended chord progression, a ghost of a beat that hadn't found its place yet. It wasn't bad. It just... wasn't right.
And she didn't know why.
She leaned back in her chair, eyes closed, trying to catch the thread she'd been chasing all week. It was right there—on the tip of her tongue, in the space between two chords, buried under the static of her own overworked brain.
"You're stuck again," Taeyong said gently from behind her.
She didn't open her eyes. "Is it that obvious?"
"Only when you've played the same sixteen bars eight times without changing a thing."
Lexie sighed and finally turned her chair halfway to face him. Taeyong was perched on the studio couch, notebook in one hand, pencil tucked behind his ear, expression calm but knowing. He wasn't pressing—Taeyong never did. That was one reason she didn't mind working with him during these brutal October stretches. He knew when to push and when to let silence do its job.
"I just... can't hear where it's supposed to go," she admitted, dragging a hand down her face. "It's close. But not there."
Taeyong nodded. "Then we leave it for now. Come back with new ears."
Lexie hummed in agreement, but her eyes drifted back to the screen.
It was just a demo. A range test track for one of the pre-debut teams. No lyrics yet, no commitments. Just a melody—barely formed, barely breathing. But it held something that twisted too close to home. A progressional swell that felt like rising hope. A dip in the second chorus that collapsed into quiet like a goodbye. It reminded her of a feeling she hadn't asked to remember.
A knock broke through her thoughts.
Junny's voice followed before the door even opened. "I come bearing snacks and zero judgment."
Lexie's shoulders slumped with a relieved smile. "Jun. You're a lifesaver."
He entered with a plastic bag of drinks and a paper bag that smelled suspiciously like garlic butter toast. "Coffee. Sugar. And the kind of bread that could kill vampires. You need all three."
"Maybe four," she said, taking the drink gratefully.
Taeyong rose with a small stretch. "Perfect timing. I'll leave you two to it—I need to hop across the hall to check on a vocal comp."
He gave Lexie a light tap on the shoulder. "Let it breathe," he said, nodding toward the screen.
She gave a tight smile. "Trying."
As the door closed behind him, Junny slid into Taeyong's empty spot and took a sip of his own drink. For a moment, he just watched her—noticing the way her hoodie sleeves were rolled to her elbows, how the creases under her eyes hadn't faded since he saw her last week.
"You look like you've slept in ten-minute increments since Chuseok."
"I think I did," she muttered.
He tilted his head toward the screen. "This the track you're stuck on?"
"Yeah." Her voice dropped. "It's for the November team evaluations. Just a base melody for them to arrange vocals over. But something about it won't land."
Junny listened. The loop started again.
After a few bars, he said, "It's beautiful."
Lexie didn't respond.
"But it feels like it's waiting for someone to finish it."
Her eyes flicked to his. He didn't elaborate.
Junny leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Can I guess?"
"You already did."
He didn't say Mark's name. Didn't need to. The room was already thick with it.
"I didn't mean for it to sound like him," Lexie murmured. "But it does."
"Maybe it's not him. Maybe it's you."
She looked away.
Before she could answer, the door creaked open again.
Johnny stepped in—no warning, no announcement, just his usual casual presence filling the room like he belonged there. He took one look at Lexie, then Junny, then the screen.
"Am I interrupting a grief circle or a work session?" he asked lightly.
Lexie gave a tired smile. "A bit of both."
He wandered over to the console and glanced at the looping waveform. "This the problem child?"
"Yeah," she blinked. "How do you know that?"
"Taeyong talks," Johnny said, easing onto the couch. "And I've known you long enough to tell when a song's bleeding more than it should."
He listened as it played again. Then again. And again.
By the third loop, even Johnny—always one for light banter—had stopped smiling. His eyes stayed trained on the monitors.
"This track's heavy," he said finally, voice lower. "Like it's carrying something it's not ready to say."
Lexie stared at the screen.
"You ever think some songs are just mirrors?" he continued. "Doesn't matter what you write—it's gonna reflect whatever you're avoiding."
She didn't answer.
Johnny stepped back. "I'll leave you two with that little fortune cookie wisdom."
Before leaving, he turned at the door. "But for what it's worth... sometimes the best songs don't get finished until you are."
And then he was gone.
Junny didn't say anything for a while.
Lexie just stared at the loop on screen, breath shallow.
Then she reached for the fader and pulled it down—just enough to mute the track for a moment.
"I think I need to rewrite this," she said quietly.
"Take your time," Junny replied. "You're allowed to."