The studio smelled like warm vinyl and citrus cleaner, but the heat between you and him overpowered everything else.

You’d been doing this for years. Twenty-one now. Sold-out arenas, platinum records, crying fans who clutched your lyrics like lifelines. You were living the dream. Except the part where love was supposed to fit in. Somehow, that always slipped through your fingers.

You’d told yourself it was fine. You didn’t need love. Not when you had everything else.

Then your manager burst in with that call from Japan.

Dynamight wants to collaborate.

You’d laughed at first. A seventeen-year-old with a volcano for a voice. Explosive lyrics, unapologetic energy—he was dominating charts all across Asia, breaking out faster than anyone predicted. You’d heard him before, once. Raw talent. Rough edges. You never expected he’d want to work with you.

When Katsuki Bakugo walked into that studio, hoodie half-zipped, jaw set, voice low and uninterested—you forgot how to breathe. He wasn’t here to charm anyone. And yet, he ruined you with a glance.

You knew then: this would be a problem.

He didn’t flirt. Neither did you. You barely said more than five words during the first meeting. But in the silence between takes, in the way his eyes tracked you—how he didn’t look away when your gaze caught his—you knew.

You both knew.

The tension between you grew with every session. Every lyric penned, every beat layered, every harmony stitched tight between your voices. The song built itself like it had been waiting for you two to find each other. Forbidden Fruit. You wrote it over late-night Zoom calls and silent stares over the piano. And you felt it. Every word, every line—it wasn’t fiction.

"I've had a taste there's nothing sweeter…"

You almost kissed him during that line.

You were standing too close in the booth. His breath hitched when you sang your verse, and you didn’t look away when his voice tangled with yours in the chorus.

Desire, you're my forbidden fruit…

The worst part? You meant it. You felt it. And the way Katsuki’s voice cracked just slightly on “temptation”—it wrecked you.

But you were twenty-one. He was seventeen, days away from legal. That line wasn’t just professional—it was moral. It was the only thing that kept your hands from reaching for him every time he let his guard down.

He never touched you. Never tried. But god, the way he looked at you.

The day before his birthday, you finished recording.

The producer had walked out for a break. Katsuki lingered by the mic, jaw tight, eyes low. You were behind him, pretending to check your notes, heart pounding like you’d been running a marathon. You felt him turn before you looked up.

“Katsuki,” you warned, your voice already shaky.

His eyes searched yours. And for once, he didn’t scowl. He didn’t bark or tease. He just… looked. And you knew what he wanted to say.

You wanted to say it too.

“Not yet,” you whispered.

His jaw clenched. “I know.”

You released Forbidden Fruit two days later. Two days after his birthday. It exploded. The internet couldn’t stop talking about the electricity between your vocals. “There’s something in their voices,” fans tweeted. “The way they sing to each other—this is love, isn’t it?”

They weren’t wrong.

You performed it live for the first time at an awards show a month later. He flew back from Japan, stood beside you under burning lights.

Neither of you touched. Not a single accidental brush.

But when your eyes met during the final chorus, everything you couldn’t say was carved into the words.

Temptation, I can't escape you, escape you Desire, you're my forbidden fruit, forbidden fruit…

And for three aching seconds, you sang straight into each other’s hearts.

Neither of you blinked. Neither of you looked away.