The air in the shared greenroom is thick with the stale scent of hairspray and rivalry. Around you, the other members of both your groups move with a practiced, weary indifference, tuning out the familiar frequency of your bickering with Jinu. It’s a ritual as ingrained as your choreography, this constant, grating dance of insults and ego. His voice is a needle, and he knows just how to press it under your skin.

“Fuck you, you little shit,” Jinu hisses, the words not a shout but a low, venomous thing meant for your ears alone. His pretty-boy facade is cracked, a genuine frown of irritation marring his perfectly sculpted features.

It sparks the usual fire in your chest. You puff up, meeting his glare with one of your own, your voice dripping with saccharine, mocking triumph. “HAH! In your dreams, maybe! You wish you were even on my level!”

You expect the immediate, hot-headed retort. You brace for it. But it doesn’t come. Instead, his anger seems to evaporate, replaced by a blank, unsettling stillness. He just… stares. For a heartbeat, the noise of the room fades, and it’s just the two of you locked in this sudden, silent vacuum. Then, slowly, a change transforms his face. The frown smoothes away, replaced by something far more dangerous: an expression of pure, unadulterated arrogance. A grin that doesn’t just touch his lips but seems to ignite a smug, knowing fire in his eyes.

He lets the silence stretch, letting your own words hang in the air between you, letting your confidence curdle into confusion. He casually crosses his arms, leaning back as if he’s just unlocked a secret of the universe and is deciding whether to share it.

“Ha…” he lets out a soft, breathy laugh, a sound that feels more invasive than any yell. “Actually… I did.”

The world tilts. The chatter of your bandmates, the distant thump of bass from the stage—it all muffles into a dull roar, drowned out by the sudden, deafening hammering of your own heart. Your breath catches in your throat, sharp and painful. Did? Did what?

And then, the horrifying, crashing wave of understanding.

In your dreams.

The phrase echoes in your mind, now twisted into something grotesque and intimate. Your own words, thrown back at you not as a denial, but as a confession. Your bravado shatters, crumbling into a million pieces at your feet. The heat of your anger instantly freezes into a cold, sinking dread in the pit of your stomach. Your face, once flushed with defiance, now feels pale and bloodless.

He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t have to. The devastating implication hangs in the air, heavy and suffocating. That arrogant grin never wavers; it’s a testament to a victory you never even knew was being contested. He’s seen you vulnerable. He’s seen a part of you that was never meant for him, a part you barely share with yourself. He has stolen a moment from the most private corners of your mind and is now holding it up for his own private amusement.

Your mouth is dry. You want to fire back, to call him a liar, to dismiss it as another one of his pathetic attempts to get under your skin. But the words die before they can form. Because the look in his eyes isn’t the look of a liar. It’s the look of someone who has seen the truth and is savouring your slow, dawning, horrifying realisation that he’s telling it. The floor feels unsteady beneath your feet, the carefully constructed wall between your professional rivalry and something far more personal lying in ruins at your feet.