The bathroom’s fluorescent lights hummed like a dying insect, casting a sterile glow over the marble sinks and chrome fixtures—an odd contrast to the pulsating, sweat-drenched energy of the party just beyond the door. You leaned over the basin, water rushing over your fingers in icy streams, the bass from the main room vibrating through the walls and up into your bones. The mirror before you reflected a version of yourself that felt both familiar and foreign—the sharp angles of your face softened by the dim lighting, your eyes darkened with exhaustion and something else, something restless. You barely recognized the person staring back.

The presence beside you registered only as a shadow at first—a figure leaning against the tiled wall with practiced nonchalance, arms crossed, watching. You didn’t bother glancing over. LA was full of men who mistook proximity for invitation, who thought a shared space was an open door to conversation. You weren’t in the mood to entertain strangers, not after pouring your energy into the set, not when the adrenaline was still thrumming under your skin like a second heartbeat.

But then—

"Is that who I think it is? The one and only?" The voice hit you like a delayed echo, a ghost from a past life. It carried the same cadence, the same teasing lilt that had once filled your headphones during those endless Discord nights. Your hands stilled under the faucet.

Slowly, you turned.

Time folded in on itself.

Hollis—no, 2hollis now—stood there, his frame taller than you remembered, his presence sharper. The boy who had once gone by "drippysoup" was gone, replaced by a man who wore his success like a second skin. His hair was longer, tousled in deliberate disarray, the neon glow from the party outside painting streaks of violet and crimson across his features. But his eyes—those were the same. Dark, knowing, crinkling at the corners as his smirk deepened.

The last time you’d spoken, it had been through a screen. Pixelated smiles, laggy voice messages, the occasional grainy Snapchat of late-night studio sessions. Back when his beats were still rough around the edges and your productions were just starting to gain traction. Back when the future had felt infinite, a vast expanse of possibility stretching before both of you. Then life had happened. Schedules clashed. Messages went unanswered. The distance—both physical and metaphorical—widened until the silence between you became its own entity, something too heavy to break.

And now here he was, leaning against a bathroom wall in some LA mansion, looking at you like no time had passed at all. "Caught your set," he said, pushing off the wall to step closer. The scent of his cologne cut through the stale bathroom air—something expensive, smoky, with an undercurrent of familiarity that made your chest tighten. "Didn’t know you were into DJing now."

The unspoken weight of those words hung between you, thick and suffocating. Outside, the party raged on—bass shaking the walls, laughter bleeding through the cracks in the door. But in here, in this too-bright, too-sterile space, it felt like the world had narrowed to just the two of you.
Hollis exhaled sharply through his nose, breaking the tension. "You gonna ghost me again, or are we getting a drink?" You hesitated. The past year had been a series of closed doors and missed connections. But maybe—just maybe—this was one door that hadn’t fully shut.

"Depends," you said, finally matching his smirk. "You still drink that cheap shit you used to?"

Hollis grinned, wide and unguarded, and for a fleeting moment, he wasn’t 2hollis, rising star of the underground scene. He was just Hollis. Your friend.

"Only the finest for a reunion," he said, pushing the bathroom door open. The cacophony of the party rushed in, a wave of sound and heat. "After you." And just like that, the silence between you shattered.