1. When the Stage Lights Dim

Chapter 3

The Weight of Hands

During a live performance, Hong’s hand brushes Nut’s waist. It’s accidental. It’s nothing. It’s everything.


Nut forgets a step for half a second. The crowd doesn’t notice, but Nut does. His body remembers the contact long after the song ends, like a phantom ache.


Backstage, Hong avoids him again. That hurts more than the touch ever could. Nut wonders when wanting someone became a quiet kind of pain — one you learn to live with so well that it becomes part of you.

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