The video played again.
And again.
Ami's hands were clenched so tight around her phone that her knuckles had turned white.
She sat alone in the corner of the studio — the one with the poster wall and the broken fan — watching the raw footage of Shou's band rehearsal that someone had uploaded to their shitty YouTube channel. The quality was garbage. The lighting was trash. The sound was cracked and full of feedback.
But his voice—
Elliot's voice.
It was unfiltered, broken, angry. Screaming like he'd been waiting a lifetime to bleed.
"You get to shine—AND I GET TO FUCKING BURN!"
The crowd of maybe five people had cheered.
The band had clapped.
And Ami had felt her lungs collapse inward.
Because she knew—
She knew every word was meant for her.
She stood up so fast the chair toppled over. She didn't pick it up.
⸻
Elliot was sitting in the warehouse again when she found him.
Shou's band was running through a rough track, the place full of noise and heat and cables. Shou was shirtless behind the drums, pounding out a beat like a war cry. Akira stood with his foot on the amp, bass slung low, mouthing the hook of their new single. The others nodded along, half in the music, half in their own chaos.
Elliot stood off to the side, headphones on, not smiling — but more present than she'd seen him in weeks.
He turned. Froze.
She walked in like a bullet.
"What the actual fuck is wrong with you?!"
The whole band stopped playing. Feedback shrieked into silence.
Elliot blinked.
"Ami—"
"Don't 'Ami' me, you fucking coward! You wanna write a goddamn breakup song about me? Go ahead. But you don't get to perform your pain for strangers and then pretend like it's healing!"
"It's not about you."
"Oh fuck off. You screamed my life into a mic and called it therapy."
"You think I wanted this?! You think I enjoyed having to rip myself apart just to get you to look at me?!"
"You think writing a hook makes you some tortured genius now?"
"I think it made me honest for the first time in months."
Shou stepped forward cautiously. "Hey, maybe you two should—"
"Stay the fuck out of this," Elliot snapped.
⸻
Ami stalked up to him, chest heaving.
"You left me. After everything. After everything I gave you. You left me to fail—"
"I left because I was drowning! Because every second of my life was about you! Your schedule, your rehearsals, your fucking career! Do you even know who I am without you?! Because I sure as hell didn't!"
"I never asked you to lose yourself."
"No, you just built everything around needing me until I didn't know where I ended and you began!"
His voice cracked. His face was red. He was shaking.
"I was never good enough for you. Not flashy enough. Not useful enough unless I was holding your spotlight up with bleeding hands."
"I never said that!"
"You didn't have to!"
⸻
Ami screamed back:
"I FUCKING LOVED YOU!"
The words hit like a brick.
The band froze. Even Shou looked away.
"I didn't know how to say it," Ami said, voice ragged. "Because I thought if I said it, you'd leave. And I was right."
Elliot stared at her like he was drowning again. But differently now. Like her voice was the last thing tethering him to the surface.
She stepped forward, tears running down her face.
"I loved you. I still do. And I ruined it. I know that. But I can't breathe without you. Not as a friend, not as a manager, not as anything."
"You made me feel like I didn't matter."
"Because I was scared." Her voice cracked. "Scared that if I leaned on you, you'd realize I wasn't enough."
"You were always enough."
He collapsed forward.
The sob ripped out of him before he could stop it.
He tried to hide his face. She reached out and pulled him in — and the moment her arms wrapped around him, he broke.
He cried into her shoulder like a child.
She cried against his chest like someone trying to stitch back a heart.
It wasn't romantic. It wasn't pretty. It was wreckage clinging to wreckage, trying to build something new.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Me too," he said. "So fucking sorry."
⸻
They sat there for a while, still trembling.
When they finally pulled apart, Ami wiped her face with her sleeve and whispered:
"I want to start over."
He looked up.
"As what?"
"As everything. As your idiot client. As your idiot partner. As someone who knows now what you're worth and never forgets it again."
He nodded slowly.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Yeah."
He smiled through tears.
"But you're paying me this time."
They both laughed — just barely.
⸻
Shou stepped forward, tossing a towel at Elliot's face.
"You're a fucking emotional trainwreck, Graves."
"Yeah."
"But we're here if it falls apart again."
Akira held up a beer can like a toast.
"Even if she dumps you again."
"Shut the fuck up," Elliot mumbled, but he smiled.
⸻
As they packed up, Ami glanced around the room.
"This place is disgusting."
"It's sacred," Elliot corrected.
She took his hand.
"Let's try again. Properly."
He squeezed back.
"We will."