Lee Heeseung was trained to disappear into perfection.

He woke up early, practiced until his muscles ached, smiled even when his throat was tight with exhaustion. Every rule existed for a reason: protect the group, protect the image, protect the dream. Wanting too much was dangerous. Crossing lines was unthinkable.

You crossed lines for a living.

A rockstar with a reputation that followed you louder than your music—late nights, messy headlines, strangers in hotel rooms who never learned your real name. You burned fast and unapologetically, as if the world couldn’t cage you even if it tried.

Heeseung noticed you in the quiet moments first.

Not on stage, not under lights—but when you sat on the floor backstage, guitar resting loosely in your hands, humming to yourself like no one was listening. You noticed him watching and smiled, soft, unguarded.

You didn’t tease. You didn’t approach. You waited.

That was how it always went.

Weeks turned into months of almosts. Almost conversations. Almost confessions. You shared coffee in paper cups before sunrise, fingers brushing once by accident—never again. Heeseung memorized the sound of your laugh the way he memorized choreography: carefully, privately.

There were rules he never told you about, but you followed them anyway.

No photos. No touching in public. No questions about what would happen if someone found out. Instead, you gave him small things—lyrics scribbled on napkins, playlists meant for late nights, a jacket when the air turned cold.

He gave you trust.

In a life where everything was monitored, he chose you as the one place he could be honest. He told you when he was tired. When the pressure felt heavy. When he wished, just once, to live without being watched.

You never asked him to choose.

And maybe that was why he stayed.

The romance lived in pauses. In glances held a second too long. In the way he leaned toward you instinctively, even when he stepped back just in time.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t loud.

It was soft. Slow. And forbidden only because the world wasn’t ready to see something so real.