Xx

Silence was not empty; it was heavy. It possessed a suffocating, gelatinous weight that pressed against the back of Hongjoong’s eyes and thrummed behind his teeth. For twenty-two years, his world had been defined by counterpoint and syncopation, by the crackle of a condenser microphone and the warm hum of bass bleeding through a pair of studio monitors. He had lived inside a symphony of his own making, arranging every second of his future around the belief that sound was his birthright.

Then his genetics had caught up to him, a fault line buried deep in his DNA that finally ruptured.

The decline had started as a muffled blur, like listening to the world underwater, before decaying into a sharp, persistent hiss. By winter, even the hiss was gone. What remained was absolute, unrelenting stillness.

Hongjoong hated it. He hated the dust gathering on his MIDI keyboard, sitting like a black-and-white gravestone in the corner of their shared bedroom. He hated the pitying, careful way people looked at him. Most of all, he hated the fluttering of Seonghwa’s hands.

"I don't need to go," Hongjoong had insisted that afternoon.

At least, he thought that was what he had said. He couldn't be sure anymore. Ever since the last thread of acoustic feedback vanished, his own voice felt alien in his throat—a violent, jagged vibration that rattled in his ribcage without any guarantee of pitch or volume. He rarely spoke because of it. Speaking made him feel like an impostor in his own skin, blindly hurling vibrations into an abyss he could not map.

Seonghwa had merely frowned, his dark eyes brimming with that quiet, devastating patience Hongjoong had come to loathe. Seonghwa’s hands had moved in fluid, graceful arches: We need food. You have not left the apartment in two weeks. Come with me.

Hongjoong had looked away, crossing his arms and clenching his jaw. He knew a few stray shapes—food, home, no—because Seonghwa had practically weaponized them, leaving flashcards on the counter and practicing gestures in front of the hallway mirror until his fingers bled with muscle memory. Seonghwa was trying to build a bridge across a chasm Hongjoong had no desire to cross. Learning to sign felt like signing a surrender treaty. It meant conceding that the silence had won, that the music was dead, that Kim Hongjoong, the composer, had been permanently replaced by a ghost who communicated through shadows on a wall.

Yet, Seonghwa had handed him his coat anyway, tucking a woolen scarf around Hongjoong’s neck with an insistence that brooked no argument.

Now, they were in the middle of a brightly lit supermarket three blocks from their apartment. To Hongjoong, the experience was a dizzying nightmare.

Without sound to anchor space, everything arrived without warning. A metal shopping cart nearly clipped his hip, rattling past in a sudden blur of chrome and plastic. Hongjoong flinched violently, his back hitting a display of boxed cereal. The world moved too fast when you couldn't hear it coming. Shoppers pushed past him, mouths twisting into shapes he couldn't decipher, laughing at jokes that died before they reached him. Children ran wild, crying or shrieking, their small faces screwed up in tantrums that were utterly mute to his ears, making them look terrifyingly frantic.

Seonghwa was walking beside him, one hand resting lightly on the handle of their basket. He stopped in front of the produce aisle, picking up a bundle of scallions and examining them critically. When he turned toward Hongjoong, his face brightened with a soft, inquiring smile.

Seonghwa’s hands lifted.

His fingers darted, twisted, and smoothed the air with practiced fluidity. He fingerspelled a word, then transitioned into a series of rolling gestures that seemed so effortless, so easy, that it made Hongjoong’s stomach curdle with acid.

Hongjoong stared blankly. He had no idea what Seonghwa was saying. Was he asking about dinner? Was he asking if Hongjoong wanted soup? Was he telling him to cheer up?

An elderly woman standing nearby paused, her eyes drifting from Seonghwa’s moving fingers to Hongjoong’s rigid, unresponsive posture. Her gaze was thick with that sickening, saccharine sorrow that made Hongjoong want to rip his own skin off.

Look at the poor boy, her eyes seemed to say. Look at how broken he is.

Hongjoong stepped back, shaking his head. He shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets, refusing to bring them out.

Seonghwa paused. His brow furrowed with concern, his shoulders slumping just a fraction. He lowered the vegetables into the basket and stepped closer, invading Hongjoong’s personal bubble. Again, his hands rose between them. He signed faster this time, his expression urgent, desperate to communicate, desperate to pull Hongjoong out of the icy shell he had locked himself inside.

Stop it, Hongjoong thought, his breath coming shorter and shallower. Stop doing that.

Seonghwa tapped his fingers against his chin, then flared his palm outward, pointing to the shelves, then touching his own chest, fingers dancing in an intricate, beautiful, utterly indecipherable rhythm.

It was too much. The harsh fluorescent lights humming invisible frequencies against his skull, the suffocating isolation of the crowded aisle, the mocking dance of fingers spelling out a world he refused to belong to—it all rushed inward like a collapsing star.

"Stop!"

Hongjoong’s voice ripped out of his throat, tearing against his vocal cords.

He didn't mean to shout, but he couldn't tell. He only felt the savage, raw rumble tear through his lungs, reverberating so hard in his chest that his sternum ached.

"Stop it!" he yelled again, his hands flying out of his pockets to violently swat Seonghwa’s hands away.

The impact was sharp. Hongjoong felt the sting in his palms where he had slapped Seonghwa’s wrists down, knocking them out of the air.

Around them, the supermarket froze.

Hongjoong didn't need hearing to know that the aisle had fallen deathly still. He saw it in the sudden paralysis of the people around him. Heads whipped around. The elderly woman gasped, clutching her purse to her chest as she backed away. Down the aisle, a clerk stocking shelves dropped a plastic crate, staring with wide, alarmed eyes.

Hongjoong was panting, his vision blurring with hot, humiliating tears. He had yelled. He had yelled at the top of his lungs, unregulated, jagged, broken, like an animal backed into a corner. He didn't know what his voice sounded like anymore. Was it high? Was it a hideous croak? Was it a monstrous shriek? The sheer, terrifying vulnerability of having exposed that ugliness in public stripped him bare.

"I can't... I don't know what you're doing!" Hongjoong choked out.

He tried to moderate his volume, dropping into what he hoped was a whisper, but he felt the harsh scrape in his throat and feared he was still screaming.

"I don't understand you!" Hot tears finally spilled over his eyelashes, scalding his cold cheeks. "I don't want this! Stop making me look at it! I don't know what you want from me!"

His chest heaved. He wrapped his arms around his own torso, hugging himself tightly as if to keep from shattering into pieces on the linoleum floor. His knuckles turned white where he gripped his coat. He wanted to vanish. He wanted the floor to split open and swallow him whole so he would never have to see the pity in the eyes of strangers, so he would never have to face the quiet, devastating tragedy of his ruined life.

He braced himself for Seonghwa’s anger, or worse, his retreat. If Seonghwa walked away now, Hongjoong would have deserved it. He had struck his friend; he had made a scene; he was completely, utterly impossible to love.

Instead, warm hands gently encircled his wrists.

Seonghwa didn't care about the staring crowd. He stepped right into Hongjoong’s space, crowding out the rest of the grocery store until all Hongjoong could see was the soft knit of Seonghwa’s cream-colored sweater and the wide, glistening sorrow in his eyes.

Seonghwa didn't let go, even when Hongjoong tried to jerk his arms away. Seonghwa held firm, his grip entirely devoid of violence—steady, grounding, an anchor thrown into a storm.

Seonghwa leaned in close, until their foreheads almost touched. He waited until Hongjoong’s frantic, darting eyes were forced to meet his own.

Seonghwa took a slow, exaggerated breath, his chest expanding against Hongjoong’s.

Breathe, the motion said without words.

Hongjoong’s lungs hitched, a ragged sob catching in his throat. He couldn't hear the sound of his own weeping, but he felt the shuddering tremor wrack his frame. Seonghwa pulled him forward, tucking Hongjoong’s face against the crook of his neck, shielding him entirely from the prying eyes of the aisle.

One of Seonghwa’s hands moved up to cradle the back of Hongjoong’s head, his long fingers threading through the dyed strands of Hongjoong’s hair. Seonghwa held him tightly, his body absorbing the violent shakes of Hongjoong’s grief, letting the younger man hide against him while the world watched.

They stayed like that for what felt like hours, two figures pressed together amid the stark, unfeeling aisles of the market. Hongjoong cried until the tears ran dry, until the burning humiliation in his veins cooled into a dull, exhausted ache. The tight knot in his chest loosened just enough for air to pass through normally.

When Hongjoong finally pulled back, sniffling and wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve, Seonghwa let him go. Seonghwa took half a step back, giving him room to breathe, but his eyes never wavered.

Hongjoong kept his gaze pinned to the floor, terrified of seeing frustration or disgust.

A gentle finger tapped the top of his shoulder.

Hongjoong flinched, then slowly, hesitantly raised his eyes.

Seonghwa wasn't angry. His eyes were red-rimmed, glistening with unshed tears of his own, but his expression was overwhelmingly gentle. He didn't rush. He didn't try to speak—because he knew Hongjoong couldn't read his lips when his vision was clouded with tears.

Instead, Seonghwa waited until Hongjoong was looking directly at his hands.

There were no complex, dizzying motions this time. No rapid fingerspelling, no layered grammatical structures that left Hongjoong feeling stupid and adrift.

Seonghwa placed his open palm flat against his own chest. He patted it once, twice.

Me.

Then, he pointed his index finger directly at Hongjoong’s chest, gentle and steady.

You.

Hongjoong’s breath caught. He watched, transfixed, as Seonghwa brought both hands together in front of his torso, curling his fingers loosely and locking them together, pressing his palms against each other in a solid, unshakeable clasp.

Together.

Hongjoong swallowed hard, the lump in his throat aching fiercely.

Seonghwa didn't stop. He moved deliberately, exaggerating each gesture so there could be no mistaking its meaning. He took Hongjoong’s limp, cold hand and lifted it, placing it against his own jaw.

Seonghwa opened his mouth and hummed.

Hongjoong felt the deep, resonant vibration buzz through Seonghwa’s skin and into his own fingertips. It was the only music he had felt in months—not an orchestrated track, not a synthesized melody, but the simple, undeniable chord of human life.

Seonghwa smiled, small and tentative, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He pulled his hands back and formed a roof shape with his fingers, tapping them together.

Home.

Then, Seonghwa tilted his head toward the exit, his hand sweeping outward in an open, welcoming gesture that required no formal training to understand.

Go.

Me. You. Together. Home. Go.

The simplicity of it broke whatever remained of Hongjoong’s iron-clad defenses. It wasn't an insistence that he assimilate; it wasn't a demand that he accept his new reality all at once. It was a compromise. It was Seonghwa stripping away the noise, descending into the dark where Hongjoong had been hiding, and offering a single, flickering candle.

Hongjoong looked from Seonghwa’s eyes down to the basket of forgotten groceries on the floor. He didn't want to be here. He wanted to curl up in their apartment, away from the world, away from the terrifying vastness of soundless space.

He looked back up at Seonghwa.

Slowly, his hands trembling so hard he could barely control his fingers, Hongjoong brought his right hand out from his side.

He didn't know the proper sign. He didn't know the angle of the wrist or the exact placement of the fingers. But he formed an approximation of that same roof shape Seonghwa had just shown him. He touched the tips of his fingers together, his knuckles shaking.

Home.

Seonghwa let out a breath that looked like a quiet, trembling laugh. A single tear escaped his eye and tracked down his cheek, but the smile on his face was the brightest thing Hongjoong had seen in months.

"Home," Hongjoong whispered, trusting the vibration in his chest just this once, uncaring of whether it was loud or soft, ugly or melodic.

Seonghwa nodded vigorously. He abandoned the shopping basket without a second thought, not caring about the groceries, the stares, or the mess left behind. He reached out and caught Hongjoong’s hand, lacing their fingers together tightly, warmly, grounding him against the sterile, silent world.

Together, they turned and walked toward the exit, leaving the noise behind.