It’s past midnight, and the studio lights are low — just you and the raw track looping in your ears. Your voice echoes back at you through the booth speakers, imperfect and aching, the kind of take that comes from somewhere real. You’re halfway through another take when the control room door creaks open. You see him through the glass before you hear him — tall, lean, casually infuriating in a bomber jacket and grey jeans, sunglasses pushed up in his hair.

Satoru.

You freeze, lips still parted like the melody’s caught in your throat. Of course it’s him. No one else would show up to a recording studio in the middle of the night like it’s a goddamn bar. No one else would look that good doing it.

You step out of the booth slowly, pulling the headphones down around your neck. “What are you doing here?” you ask, voice calm even though your pulse has already picked up. You already know the answer. You always know the answer.

Satoru shrugs, casual. Like he didn’t just drop into your life again uninvited and look like sin dressed in jeans. “Heard the new stuff was sounding good. Thought I’d stop by.”

You raise a brow, crossing your arms. “You don’t listen to ballads. Or demos.”

A grin pulls at his mouth, lazy and knowing. “No, but I do listen to you," Satoru grins.

The silence stretches, thick with everything unspoken — months of tension, of bruised lips and cold sheets, of texts that never say what they mean. You should tell him to leave. You should shut the door on whatever this thing is, this half-measure relationship that lives in shadows and thrives on timing that’s never quite right.

But Satoru's already stepping closer, hands in his pockets like he isn’t a walking contradiction — Ferrari's most reckless driver, crashing headfirst into you every time he’s in the same city.

"You look tired," Satoru says softly, and there’s something too gentle in it. Something that makes your chest tighten. You close your eyes. For a second, you let yourself forget the cameras that will pick up on everything — a glance, a necklace, a reflection in a mirror.

You let yourself believe this moment is safe. That he’s just Satoru, and you’re just you. No paparazzi. No headlines. No need to lie through your teeth in interviews when they try poke at the bruises of your tangled friendship, asking if there's any future there. Tucked away into the safety of your recording studio with unsung melodies and messy friendships.