Work Text:
At Your Best (You are Love) covered by: Frank Ocean
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Track forty.
The steam from the coffee machine was the only sound that filled Yushi's morning, besides the constant electric hum of the refrigerator. In the Shimokitazawa neighborhood, where trends were born and died before sunset, the coffee shop where he worked seemed like a point outside of time, but not in a poetic way. It was just an ordinary place, with minimalist white walls and plywood furniture.
2025.
Barely a year.
Yushi adjusted her black apron and glanced at the clock above the door. 7:15 AM.
He had no messages on his cell phone. Not that he was expecting any. His life in Tokyo consisted of blurred faces. Customers who barely glanced at him when ordering a latte, producers who used his voice in studio guides and then dismissed him with a nod, and the ceiling of his tiny apartment. Yushi was a modern ghost; someone who existed in the cracks of other people's success.
Which was irritating, in a way. He would hear his voice echoing over famous backing vocals on the radio, and the dense feeling gnawed at his mind; it seemed smaller than the pre-recorded version. Always. But somehow, he knew he stood out enough to be successful, enough to give him some motivational credit;
The irony was that, although Yushi lived for music, he rarely listened to it outside of work. After a few years cultivating an unrequited passion, music became a mere product. Something he packaged, delivered, and forgot about.
“Another double shift, Yushi,” Anton’s voice echoed from the other side of the counter, without melody, utterly tedious, as he carried his cup of yogurt bubble tea. Anton always stopped by the coffee shop to see Yushi, or to save him from the boredom that came outside of business hours.
"Rent isn't paid with musical notes. Take it from me, I've tried," he replied, barely forcing a polite smile as he wiped an invisible stain from the Formica countertop.
"With your voice? I highly doubt it. You should be on a stage, not cleaning up leftover cheesecake."
“Stages don’t accept discount coupons, hyung. And, as far as I know, the audience doesn’t usually throw yen notes at someone singing a guide track that’s going to be retouched by ten synthesizer filters until it sounds like a robot with a toothache,” Yushi retorted, without taking his eyes off the counter. He was rubbing the Formica with an intensity that suggested he wanted to erase not only the stain, but perhaps the very existence of that morning.
Anton let out a nasal laugh, the sound muffled by the straw. He leaned over the counter, watching his friend. “Always so dramatic. You talk like your voice is an environmental crime, when in fact it’s the only good thing on that radio station back there.”
At that moment, the background music in the cafeteria, a b-side from a generic idol group that Yushi had recorded the previous week, rose a tone during the chorus. It was his voice, hidden beneath layers of effects, doing a falsetto that no one would notice.
Anton began to keep the rhythm, awkwardly tapping his fingers on the plastic cup. He grabbed an extra straw, still wrapped in paper, and held it out to Yushi as if it were a golden microphone, while humming off-key:
"In the city's glare, I got lost... Come on, Yushi, this part is your best. Sing with me, go on."
Yushi looked at the extended straw with the same disdain one might regard an unwanted insect. “I got paid to record this. I don’t get paid to cover myself on a Wednesday morning for an audience of a single idle client.”
“I’m not just some idle customer, I’m your biggest fan and bubble tea food critic,” Anton joked, but his eyes gleamed with that hint of seriousness that Yushi always tried to ignore. “Seriously, man. I heard this track earlier today and thought, ‘That’s Yushi.’ But it’s a Yushi who sounds like he’s crying for help through a broken radio. When are you going to stop being the ghost and become the main haunting?”
Yushi finally stopped scrubbing the counter. He took the straw from Anton's hand, tore the paper with a dry snap, and plunged it into a disposable cup of water.
“When the world stops wanting ghosts and starts wanting real people,” Yushi replied, his voice suddenly lowered, losing its sarcastic tone for a brief second.
Anton opened his mouth to reply, perhaps with another joke to break the ice, but the sound of the front door interrupted the moment, revealing none other than Wonbin, who immediately captured his attention.
For too long.
Wonbin entered with that typical aura of someone who effortlessly becomes the center of gravity in any room. Her hair perfectly disheveled, her coat draped over her shoulders, and that expression of someone who's always in a photoshoot, even if she just came to get a coffee.
Yushi merely followed him with his gaze for two seconds. It was a mechanical registration. Wonbin. Lucky groom, porcelain face, frequent client. To Yushi, he was just another piece of Shimokitazawa's scenery, an aesthetic he had already memorized and that didn't elicit more than a mental yawn from him. The habit of seeing beautiful and unattainable people every day in the neighborhood had numbed his interest. Not that he wasn't truly handsome. He was, just… not his type.
But beside him, Anton's silence was deafening.
Anton's cup of bubble tea stopped halfway to his mouth. He wasn't just staring; he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. The tip of the straw poked his cheek as his eyes followed Wonbin's every step toward the corner of the shop.
Yushi let out an audible sigh and slammed the dish towel on the counter, right in Anton's face.
"Hyung, if you keep staring at the guy like that, he'll dehydrate before he even gets to the register," she muttered, the sarcasm returning in full force.
Anton blinked, stunned, and felt his ears instantly burn. "I wasn't... I just..."
“You were one step away from drooling on my freshly cleaned counter,” Yushi interrupted him, with the most apathetic expression possible. “He’s alone, hyung. And miraculously, it seems he’s not wearing headphones today. This is your chance to say something more complex than ‘good morning’.”
Anton swallowed hard, his usual confidence melting like the ice in his glass. “Hello? It’s Wonbin, Yushi. What am I going to say? 'Hi, is the weather perfect for being ridiculously attractive today?'”
Yushi rolled his eyes and gave his friend a light nudge on the shoulder.
“Say his order is on the house because the server” he pointed to himself “is in a good mood. Or better yet, say you’re a ‘bubble tea critic’ and want his opinion on the new flavor. Anything, hyung! Just go…” Yushi gave a softer smile, but still tinged with mischief.
Seriously, go there before he orders a coffee to go and disappears from your life for another twenty-four hours. I'll hold down the fort here.”
Anton looked at Wonbin, then at Yushi, looking like a condemned man. Yushi simply nodded in the boy's direction, watching with amused boredom as his friend tried to gather the pieces of his own courage.
It would be a funny scene if Yushi didn't feel, for a moment, that time seemed to be slowing down as Wonbin walked, almost as if reality was preparing for a change of frequency that Yushi couldn't yet comprehend.
And then, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and Yushi reached for it with his fingertips. He stared at the device with a hint of irritation; he hated breaks in the silence that weren't justified by something truly important.
He swiped his finger across the locked screen.
From: YOKO RECORDS - Talent & Historical Archive Department Subject: INVITATION: Special Audition - "REWIND" Project
Yushi felt a dry snap at the base of his neck. YOKO RECORDS. He had done backing vocals for their artists before, but he had never received a direct email from the label, much less from the "Historical Archive."
[Dear Mr. Yushi,
Your vocal profile is "highly compatible" for an extremely urgent technical position. We are initiating the REWIND project, an initiative to restore lost recordings from the 1970s.
We need a voice with your exact timbre to fill frequency gaps in damaged master recordings of the artist known as "KD".Lee. ]
He felt that tingling in his feet again, but this time it was stronger, as if the floor was trying to tell him that he had been in that studio before. "They want me to restore music by someone called KD."
Anton frowned. “KD? Never heard of it. Must be one of those relics nobody bought. But, man… it’s YOKO! It’s your ticket out of this dungeon!”
Yushi didn't answer. He glanced at Wonbin, who was now paying for his coffee at the other counter a few meters away, then at Anton, who promptly understood the message.
The end of the workday was approaching.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Voices
Hearing "KD's" voice really caught him off guard.
I mean, Yushi was used to hearing himself. He knew every bend in his vocal range, the exact point where his breath faltered, and the metallic resonance that autotune insisted on polishing until it became plastic. But this, in studio 4 of YOKO RECORDS, was different.
It wasn't just a resemblance. It was an invasion of identity.
“Can you tell, Yushi-san?” The producer, a man with gray hair and thick-rimmed glasses, slid the mixing console potentiometer upwards. “This tape was recorded in August 1975. The singer disappeared three weeks later. There are no records of his face, only this pseudonym: KD.”
Yushi sat on the synthetic leather sofa, studio headphones pressing against his ears. The sound coming from them was grainy, full of static and the organic warmth of reel-to-reel tapes. But the voice... the voice sounded like a mirror, perhaps a little stronger. It had the same restrained vibrato, the same way of pronouncing the "s" sounds that Yushi thought was a quirk exclusive to him.
“It’s like…” Yushi began, her voice trailing off in her dry throat. “Like I’m hearing a version of myself that lived before I was born. Does that make sense?”
“Exactly! We contacted you as soon as we received the voice file. We want to release a posthumous album, a revival of that era, something memorable. The problem is that KD's music is... quite complex. It doesn't follow the success metrics of that time, which makes it a little…”
“Raw and melancholic.” Yushi blurted out, without realizing it.
He closed his eyes. Through the glass wall of the studio, he could see the reels of tape spinning slowly.
Rewind.
Go back.
"Why did he disappear?"
The producer shrugged, flipping through a folder of yellowed files.
"They say he simply gave up. He had no name or face, we don't even know if he was a young man or a man from the Stone Age. But KD was truly sought after for very famous songs. His voice was... well, incomparable for the time."
Suddenly, the music in the headphones stopped with a dry crack. A reading error. Yushi felt a sudden dizziness, the modern studio seeming to sway before his eyes. The smell of expensive coffee from the reception area was replaced, for a millisecond, by a strong odor of old wood and tobacco.
“Sir.” Yushi interrupted, her voice trembling. “That song… “At Your Best: You Are Love”… I know it.”
The producer frowned, adjusting his glasses. “Yushi, this tape was never even released. It was kept as a prop for fifty years but was never released.”
“Is this a song exclusively his? Heavens, I know the melody,” he insisted, standing up. “Look…”
Yushi removed the connecting wire, letting the music play with KD's voice filling the entire room. Above it, his own voice echoed.
“But at your best, you are love. You're the positive motivating force within my life, Should you ever feel the need to wonder why, Ler me know”
"I don't know how, but I know every note of this progression." Yushi stared at the producer.
The producer exchanged a knowing glance with the sound engineer.
The silence that followed was thick. Yushi felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, but it wasn't a message. "How is this..."
“Is it possible?” Yushi walked to the recording booth. As he held the microphone stand, he felt the cold metal. For a moment, looking through the glass, he didn't see the producer or the digital equipment. He saw an incandescent light bulb and a young man with his back to him, wearing a dark jacket. His face was a blur.
The young man's figure in the booth seemed to absorb all the light around him. He was there, but at the same time he seemed made of dust and memory. Yushi gripped the microphone stand so tightly that his knuckles turned white. The metal wasn't just cold; it pulsed.
“Do you want to try now? Go with the flow.” The producer’s voice came through the talkback, distorted, as if he were miles away.
Yushi didn't answer immediately. He was fixated on the figure in front of him. The young man in the dark jacket.
The blur that covered his face began to dissipate as Yushi tried to focus on the melody playing. That music was truly wandering in some part of his mind; he couldn't remember its origin, but he knew it by heart.
Then the voice reached his ear. He opened his mouth to follow along, but just as his voice was about to become clearer, a deafening crack echoed throughout the studio. It wasn't a digital error. It was the sound of something physical breaking.
The original 1975 tape, spinning in the reel-to-reel machine, had snapped.
Yushi's world spun. Nausea hit him like a violent wave, and the smell of ozone and burnt electricity filled his lungs. He closed his eyes, feeling the ground disappear beneath him. When he opened them, the bright, clinical white light of YOKO RECORDS from 2025 had vanished.
The silence was different now. It wasn't the silence of modern soundproofing, but a dense silence, heavy with dust particles and the sound of distant rain hitting ceramic tiles.
Yushi was now lying on a classroom desk.
Her clothes had changed.
The chalkboard read: September 22, 1975.
The chalk crackled against the blackboard, a dry sound that made Yushi's ears ring. He lifted his face from the wooden desk, feeling the crease of the rough surface on his cheek. His eyes burned from the yellowish light filtering through the tall windows.
Around him, the sound of pages being turned and the whisper of pens were the only things that filled the air, besides the nostalgic smell of chalk and floor wax.
“Tokuno Yushi?” The teacher’s voice, a man with a rigid posture and thick-rimmed glasses, broke the trance. “I would appreciate it if your enthusiasm for the literature class was as great as your desire to sleep.”
Yushi blinked, stunned. He looked at his own hands; his nails were short, and he wore a stiff, dark, high-collared uniform.
“Sorry,” Yushi murmured, her voice sounding strangely cleaner, without the weight of the chronic weariness of 2025.
"Just pay attention. There are only a few months left until graduation. Try not to waste them."
Yushi nodded mechanically, but his heart pounded against his ribs like a caged bird. He glanced to the side, observing the other students. Bell-bottom trousers, longer hair, the complete absence of bright screens. It was 1975. He had been swallowed by time.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Outside.
The bell rang, a mechanical, shrill sound that resembled a fire alarm. The organized chaos of dismissal began. Yushi gathered her things with trembling hands and made her way outside, rushing through the hallways with a speed she tried not to suspect. No one seemed to actually care, though.
Cheerleaders in pleated wool skirts and knee-high socks laughed loudly near the olive-green metal lockers, swinging thick yarn pom-poms that looked too heavy. The hallway reeked of a mixture of cheap floor wax, hairspray, and the lingering smell of cigarettes wafting from the back patio, where the "rebels" in leather jackets and bell-bottoms hid.
There was no bluish glow from cell phone screens; instead, what could be seen were busy hands holding hardcover books, colorful cassette tapes, and metal lunchboxes with designs Yushi only knew from retro museums. The ambient sound was a cacophony of real voices, the banging of cupboard doors, and the hiss of a transistor radio tuned to some rock station playing Led Zeppelin.
“This must be crazy.” His breathing quickened as he questioned, completely absorbed in the situation, rushing to the bathroom as if it were the only place he truly knew. “I’m dreaming, none of this is real. It can’t be.”
“What is madness?” A young man leaned against the wall, playing on a Milton Bradley Microvision, a console that became very popular in the 70s, and which closely resembled a lower-quality Game Boy. The boy was of average height, wore round, inconspicuous glasses, and his dark hair fell over his forehead. His cheeks were prominent, and his fingers tapped the console with such ease that Yushi couldn't help but think it looked like he was typing a message. “Yushi, are you okay?”
Okay, he knows your name. He knows you, and it's possible everyone else knows him too. How crazy is that?
The boy didn't take his eyes off the primitive liquid crystal display. The electronic beeps were irritating and persistent.
"You look like you've seen the end of the world at the bottom of a teacup," the boy said, his voice soft but laden with precocious maturity.
"I... What? Where are we? I mean, what year is it today?" Yushi asked, her voice faltering.
The boy finally stopped tapping on the console and lifted his head. His glasses slipped slightly down his nose. He stared at Yushi with a mixture of concern and defensive boredom.
“1975, obviously. September. Did you hit your head at rehearsal yesterday?” He tucked the Microvision into his khaki pants pocket. “It’s me, Sakuya. Don’t tell me the trauma from earlier today erased your memory.”
"Trauma?"
Sakuya glanced down at his own shoe, adjusting the strap of his backpack, which seemed too heavy for his thin shoulders. Yushi then noticed a chalk stain on the side of Sakuya's jacket and a small cut on his lower lip that he was trying to hide.
“Yeah, when Yuta confronted you earlier… Dude, are you okay?” Sakuya murmured, leaning back against the cold wall again. “There’s no point in pretending to be sick to get out of here early, I’m going home with you today, remember? The guys from third year are after us ever since you tried to defend Riku last week.”
Too much information.
Yushi was visibly struggling to process it. He couldn't hide this fact. He had never been very good at expressing his features.
Yushi was friends with this Sakuya guy. Sakuya wasn't in the third year like him, so he was probably younger. Besides, the Yushi from that time actually seemed to exist and live a life. I mean, a Yushi the same age as his parents? Now that was crazy.
Oh, there was Riku too.
Who is Riku?
At one point, Yushi was just a twenty-year-old who hated his job as a ghost singer, living in the shadows of famous sounds, echoing his melodious voice in backing vocals, having a best friend who seemed to understand his ridiculous life amidst the noise of tires screeching down the road and bland, modern people.
Now, Yushi was whatever he was in 1975. Well, specifically, in September 1975.
Yushi tried to stifle the doubt with a scratch on the back of his neck. Sakuya probably noticed, but didn't say anything. Too busy trying to walk out of the bathroom and peeking around the corners of the hallway in a deafening silence compared to the suffocating noise of the students.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
1975
In the school cafeteria, typical of 1975, Sakuya and three others sat in a corner away from the usual tables. One boy had a youthful appearance, much like Sakuya, who he later discovered was Ryo. Side by side, Riku, an extremely handsome and charming boy with delicate features, long arms, and prominent lips; and Sion, who wore a more sophisticated leather jacket, a boy whose face could be considered that of a true prince. But it was an extremely chaotic group, trapped in their own world, not even noticing how much they stood out amidst everyone else.
Yushi drifted off in silence as he watched the boys engage in a random little french fry fight. He sat at the table as if he belonged to the group, and in fact he did, because none of them looked at him in surprise.
Ryo, with an energy that seemed too big for his uniform, tried to balance a french fry on his nose under Riku's judgmental, yet amused, gaze.
“If you spill that on my jacket, I swear I’ll make you clean the diner floor with your tongue,” warned Sion, adjusting his leather collar with an elegance that contrasted sharply with the orange plastic tray in front of him.
“Leave him alone, hyung,” Riku commented, his voice the most nasal in the group. “He’s trying to prove that gravity is optional for those who have nothing in their brains,” Riku said, his voice soft and melodious, while using his long fingers to push a potato towards Sakuya.
Yushi observed everything as if he were watching an old movie screen. It was strange how that group seemed like a bubble of preserved reality. They were noisy, strange, and visibly out of place in the school hierarchy, but there was a bond between them that Yushi missed in his own time. In 2025, friendships seemed to have a filter of convenience; there, friendship was raw, made of thrown french fries and insults that hid a deep affection.
“Yushi?” Riku called, tilting his head to the side. His delicate features seemed even more surreal under the yellowish light of the diner. “You haven’t said a word since you sat down. Have you gone mute, or are you just composing an opera in your head?”
“I was just… thinking,” Yushi replied, his voice sounding a little distant. “Thinking about how things change… Right?” It wasn’t as if any of them would understand the weight of those words, and judging by the confused looks on everyone’s faces before they burst into laughter, he actually thought they would never understand what he meant.
"Do you think?" Ryo asked, absorbed in the conversation between them, too focused on his french fries, which Yushi made sure to bump into with his hand and drop.
"There he is. Welcome back to the world, Mr. Tokuno (sarcasm Yushi)." Sion threw one arm over Yushi's shoulder, who honestly seemed more comfortable with him there than without.
Sion let out a heavy laugh, squeezing Yushi's shoulder with a camaraderie that almost made the "time traveler" forget that that leather jacket and that smell of cigarettes and asphalt belonged to an era that should have already ended.
"Don't mistreat the boy, Yushi. Ryo needs every calorie to keep that bird brain of his working," Sion joked, making Ryo let out an indignant grumble as he tried to retrieve the potato from the floor.
Riku chuckled softly. "I'll grab some more napkins and some sauce before you two start a civil war at this table."
He stood up with his natural elegance. Riku walked lightly, almost floating, oblivious to the predatory gaze coming from the central table where the group of players sat. In the center of them, Yuta, a veteran with a disheveled uniform and a look filled with gratuitous contempt, discreetly stretched his leg into the aisle.
It was quick. The toe of Riku's shoe caught on Yuta's heel, and the delicate boy fell to the ground with a dry thud that silenced part of the diner.
"Whoa. Watch where you're going... little sissy."
Yuta's whisper wasn't loud, but in the sudden silence of the diner, it cut like a razor. His friends laughed, banging their fists on the table.
The effect on Yushi's desk was instantaneous. Sion's arm, which had previously been a friendly embrace, became as rigid as steel. He stood up so quickly that the metal chair scraped the floor with a deafening screech. Sion's "princely" face transformed; his jaw clenched and his eyes fixed on Yuta.
"Sion, no..." Riku murmured from the ground, trying to get up hurriedly, his face flushed with humiliation.
Sion ignored them. He took a step forward, but before he could reach Yuta's table, he felt three pairs of hands grab him. Ryo grabbed his left arm, Sakuya firmly held the hem of his jacket, and Yushi stood in front of him, his hands on his friend's chest.
"He's not worth it, Sion," Yushi said, his voice calm but authoritative, a calmness that came from someone who already knew how the story of those types of bullies ended decades later. "We're leaving. Now."
"He called Riku a..." Sion growled, trying to break free, his strength impressive. "I'm going to break that idiot's teeth."
Yuta, noticing the movement, stood up slowly, defiantly. "What are you going to do, Sion? Defend your little girlfriend? Why don't you go back to your hole before I—"
"Before you what, Yuta?" He stared Yuta in the eyes with a coldness the veteran hadn't expected. It wasn't fear. It was a kind of deep pity that unsettled the bully for a second.
Sion wasn't the most rational of the group, Yushi noted. Ryo and Sakuya practically dragged Sion, who was still casting murderous glances back. Riku, already standing, quickly brushed off his pants and followed the group with his head down, his lower lip trembling slightly.
As they crossed the exit door of the diner, the cold air of the hallway seemed to calm tempers, but the tension was still palpable.
Ryo was the first to speak, trying to defuse the awful atmosphere that followed: "Algebra class. Any suggestions?" And he threw himself against the wall.
"Any coffee shops?" Yushi kept an eye on Riku, but noticing Sion's concern for him, decided not to intervene. Obviously, something was going on. "I know one—"
Yushi froze in mid-air.
I mean, he knew a coffee shop.
He knew a really good coffee shop from 2025.
Yushi felt a lump in his throat. He was about to say that he knew a coffee shop with fast Wi-Fi and Italian espresso machines, but the realization that he was fifty years away from that reality hit him like a punch in the gut.
Riku, still wiping the remaining dust from his uniform with trembling hands, simply nodded. He seemed to desperately need a hiding place. "Right, a cafeteria is much better than algebra."
The group walked through the streets of Shimokitazawa, and Yushi felt like he was in a lucid dream. He saw the wooden signs, the hand-painted lettering, and finally, they stopped in front of the facade he knew so well, but which was now a vibrant orange, not minimalist white. Vinyl covers stuck to the windows, some singers he hadn't heard of since… probably since he was born.
“Grooveyard Replay” was emblazoned above your eyes. The coffee shop was a record store. The interior was inviting, it even seemed smaller than the vast coffee shop in 2025, a little more colorful, with records, old and antique electronics.
As they entered, the doorbell jingled. The smell inside was thick: vinyl, dust, strong coffee, and something Yushi identified as the heat from amplifier tubes that had been running for a long time.
"Yushi hyung… this doesn't look much like a coffee shop," Ryo signaled, delighted, already throwing himself onto a pile of cushions at the back of the store, ignoring the meticulous arrangement of the records. There was no immediate response. Instead, a melody began to filter through a half-open door at the back, where the listening booth was located. It was a raw sound, just a guitar and a voice.
“But at your best, you are love...”
Yushi froze. He knew that recording. He had heard it in 2025, full of static and noise. But here, the voice was full. It had a velvety texture, a melancholy that seemed to vibrate off the wooden shelves.
Sion and Riku, nestled among the neatly arranged rows of records, watched everything unfold. Fascinated by the dense atmosphere of the place, the music echoing from one side to the other, a mix of Queen, Abba, and Pink Floyd.
But Yushi could only hear one. He could hear “KD’s” melodious voice echoing through the walls. The voice, similar to his own, now sounded cleaner, more natural, and without the noise of the 2025 recording. That was because it was actually being played live and in colors that digital cameras couldn’t yet capture. A young man sat on a pile of cushions in the corner of the shop, embracing a guitar he thought was a Di Giorgio Classico 28.
Beside them, shaky and scribbled sheet music, restless feet on the floor.
Yushi stopped a few meters from the young man. The sound of the guitar stopped abruptly, leaving only the echo of the strings vibrating in the dense air of the shop.
And then, the boy's gaze fell upon Yushi's figure. He merely tilted his head slightly, his dark hair falling over his eyes, confused. Jaehee's feet, previously restless, were now firmly on the ground. He let the guitar rest against his thigh and stared at Yushi. It was a look of pure bewilderment, but for Yushi, it was like receiving a high-voltage shock. It was the first time he had seen, without filters or blurs, the owner of the voice that haunted him in 2025.
"Can I... help?" The melodious voice echoed. It was a low, velvety baritone that made Ryo instantly stop jumping on the cushions. "Looking for a specific record?"
Yushi opened his mouth three times. Nothing came out. Sion took a step forward, noticing the lack of reaction, and touched Yushi's shoulder, trying to wake him up somehow. "We... Yushi said there was coffee here and... well, we needed a place, you know?"
"Oh, make yourself at home."
"Sorry," Yushi managed to say, her voice coming out firmer than she expected. "I work... I mean, I know the owner. I'm sorry for the interruption. The music was too good not to continue."
Jaehee raised an eyebrow, a glint of genuine curiosity replacing his defensiveness. He glanced at the scribbled sheet music on the floor and then back at Yushi.
"Do you know anything about music?" Jaehee asked, reaching out to pick up one of the crumpled papers.
"I understand what you're trying to do on this bridge," Yushi replied, taking an involuntary step closer, forgetting about Sion, Riku, and the others. He pointed to the sheet music on the floor. "You're trying to resolve it in C major, but the melody calls for something more melancholic. It calls for an A minor to sustain what you're feeling. That's why… can I try?"
The melody began to play on the guitar, and Yushi sat down with his feet close to the young man.
“When I feel what I feel Sometimes it's hard to tell you so You may not be in the mood to learn What you think you know…”
It seemed like an echo in his mind. His own voice sounding exactly as it was recorded, as if he knew every chord by heart. And he did. The boy followed along, confused, between the chords, amazed.
The subtle strangeness in his voice; he was mesmerized.
“There are times when I find You wanna keep yourself from me When I don't have the strength I'm just a mirror of what I see”
Yushi looked up when KD's voice began to sound alongside his, blending together with absurd ease.
“But at your best you are love You're a positive motivating force within my life If you ever feel the need to wonder why Let me know, let me know”
The silence that settled in Grooveyard Replay after the last note wasn't an empty silence; it was a heavy silence, like the air before a storm. Ryo, who seconds before had been about to knock over a stack of records with Sakuya's brilliant help, remained motionless, his mouth slightly open. Sion and Riku had stopped in the middle of the aisle, their hands still on the records, but their eyes fixed on the scene at the back of the store. The combination of their two voices had been something visceral, a frequency that seemed to have tuned the 1975 radio to the exact station of their destination.
KD didn't look away. He gripped the guitar's neck so tightly that the tips of his fingers were white. He was panting, as if he'd just run a marathon, even though he was only sitting down.
"How..." His voice came out in a whisper, almost a scratch. "How did you know that was the lyric? I wrote those verses last night. I haven't even finished putting them on paper yet."
Yushi felt cold sweat trickle down the back of his neck. The shock of reality hit him: he wasn't just a listener, he was a living anachronism. He knew the lyrics because he'd heard them in a posthumous restoration file, but not only that. He just knew.
"I... I don't know," Yushi lied, her voice trembling slightly. "I just... the melody told me where to go. It's a natural progression, isn't it?"
Jaehee let out a short, dry laugh, devoid of humor, but full of a startled admiration. He stared blankly at the guitar strings. The smell of old coffee and sheet music emanated from it.
"Nobody comes in here and plays a perfect harmonic third in a song that doesn't even exist yet... It's like you stepped out of my head."
"I... You sing very well. Are you a singer?" Yushi asked while keeping his hands between his legs.
“Ah? No, no. This is… I produce some songs as a backing vocalist. This is the first work where I've put my raw voice.” The boy laughed, noticing Yushi's hands abruptly shrink, and ran his fingers through the strings before giving her a smile without showing his teeth. “My name is Daeyoung. Kim Daeyoung.”
KD were his initials.
“Kim Daeyoung.” Yushi repeated. “I’m Yushi.”
"Your voice," Daeyoung murmured. "It sounds like mine, but... Do you sing too?”
Yushi felt her throat tighten. The revelation of KD's real name, Kim Daeyoung, echoed in her mind like a heavy bell. In 2025, that name didn't even exist; it was just a footnote in a cold police file; there, he was a boy who smiled with his eyes and smelled of coffee.
"I..." Yushi hesitated, looking at her own hands. "I sing. But usually it's to the walls. Or to get bored."
Daeyoung let out a genuine laugh, the sound vibrating in the dense air of the record store. "Because your walls must have refined musical taste. For someone who sings 'to the point of boredom,' you have the delivery of someone who's lived that song a hundred times."
He extended the guitar toward Yushi, a gesture of trust that seemed sacred. "Here. Play the chorus. I want to hear how you sustain that A minor chord on your own. If your voice sounds like mine, I want to see if your playing has the same weight."
Yushi picked up the guitar. The varnish on the Di Giorgio guitar was warm from contact with Daeyoung's body. He positioned his fingers on the strings and, for a moment, closed his eyes. He wasn't just playing a song; he was playing the very story that hadn't yet unfolded.
As Yushi strummed the first notes, the rest of the group approached, forming a silent circle around the two. Sion crossed his arms, observing the scene with rare seriousness, while Riku and Ryo sat on the ground, mesmerized by the immediate connection between the stranger from the shop and their usual sarcastic friend.
Then, a flash of memory came to mind. Yushi's mother was happily singing the song while taking the toasted bread out of the toaster. Yushi could see her clearly as her eyes closed and her fingers calmly strummed each note.
Daeyoung watched him with a feverish intensity, though Yushi couldn't perceive it. And he held his gaze until the chorus ended. Then, Yushi opened his eyes and noticed the dense atmosphere in the room. Riku was in Sion's lap, in a corner between the cushions. Ryo and Sakuya were staring at him as if the world had suddenly stopped spinning.
“Shit.” Sakuya was the first to break the silence. “Yushi, since when do you sing?”
Yushi felt the weight of the guitar in his lap as if it were a sacred artifact. The silence that followed Sakuya's question was unlike any silence he had ever experienced: it wasn't the vacuum of an isolated recording studio, but the silence of someone who has just witnessed a crack in time.
"Since... forever, I think," Yushi replied, his voice still hoarse from the experience. He handed the guitar back to Daeyoung, feeling his fingertips tingle. "My mother... she used to sing something in the same key."
Daeyoung, who had been in a trance until then, blinked several times, processing the information.
Ryo, who was sitting on the floor, stretched his legs and lightly kicked Yushi's foot. "You're a liar, Hyung. You spent months listening to us complain about music lessons, pretending you didn't know the difference between a treble clef and a coffee stain, and now you say this?"
"I wasn't pretending," Yushi tried to defend himself, although he knew that, technically, it was true—the Yushi of 1975 might not have known it, but the Yushi of 2025 had that song engraved in his soul. "I just didn't think... that it mattered."
"Didn't it matter?" Riku spoke from the corner of the cushions, still nestled close to Sion. His eyes were shining, the humiliation Yuta had caused at the diner seeming like a memory from a past life. "Yushi, you and Daeyoung... when you sang together, it felt like the whole place started breathing. I even forgot my knee is scraped."
Daeyoung stared at the figure in front of him, then at his scraped knee. He opened his mouth to ask, but Riku interrupted. "Welcome to the losers' club, long story."
Ryo stretched, breaking the seriousness of the moment. "Well, since the show's over, is anyone going to order pizza or are we just going to keep feeding our souls with coffee and existential crisis?"
The collective laughter that erupted in the small record store made the windows vibrate, and for a moment, 1975 seemed like the only time that mattered.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Friends.
Two weeks had passed since the Grooveyard Replay bell rang to announce the arrival of Yushi and his uniformed crew. What began as a refuge from a rainy afternoon had transformed into a sacred routine. Now, the vibrant orange of the record store's facade was the beacon guiding the end of each of their days.
The setting was the flat roof of the store building, accessible by a rusty iron staircase that creaked under the weight of the six. The October sun was beginning to set over Shimokitazawa, tinging the sky with an orangey-pink that perfectly matched the aesthetics of the time.
Ryo was sprawled across a patchwork quilt, trying to teach Riku how to whistle the bass line of a Fleetwood Mac song, while Sakuya, sitting on the edge of the parapet, disassembled and reassembled his Microvision with the precision of a watchmaker, his glasses perched on the tip of his nose.
"You guys are messing up the timing," Sion shouted from the other side, where he was leaning over one of the cushions, fanning himself with a scratched vinyl record of The Ventures. "Riku, you're coming in before the note. Ryo's the broken metronome here.”
"Hey! I have excellent rhythm!" Ryo protested, throwing a soggy french fry at Sion. "It's Riku who's too delicate even to whistle!"
Riku laughed, hiding his face between his knees. "I just don't want to look like I'm calling dogs in the street."
Yushi watched the scene leaning against a cement water tank, a chilled glass soda bottle in his hands. Beside him, Daeyoung strummed his guitar, but he wasn't composing; he was simply following the flow of the conversation with scattered notes. The dynamic between the six had become organic: Sion was the noisy protector, Riku the sensitive balance, Ryo the spark of energy, Sakuya the silent brain, and at the center of it all, the strange harmony between Yushi and Daeyoung.
"I don't know how I managed to become friends with you guys," Daeyoung commented, absorbed in the whole situation. He was happy, however, to have made friends.
Daeyoung didn't attend the same school as the rest of the group. In fact, he studied at a particularly artistic school in the city center. His life was practically surrounded by art and music, which seemed so different from the rest who led a normal and boring life of young people in the midst of the Arcadia of 1975.
And while laughing at a completely random topic among the others, Yushi lingered, observing each of them and the ease with which they all finally seemed to agree on something.
Daeyoung stopped playing and looked at his friends. "Sakuya helped me fix the booth amplifier yesterday. He said the circuit was 'archaic.' The kid is two years old and talks like he's from the future."
Yushi simply said, "It's strange how... it feels like we've always been together, doesn't it?"
Sion approached, carrying some open packages of chips. He handed one to each of them, sitting down on the floor between them. "It's because we've always been together, except for Dae."
"And even so," Daeyoung interjected, stretching his legs and letting his guitar rest on his chest, "it feels like I've known you all since the world was black and white. It's bizarre. I spend all day surrounded by people who breathe music theory and performance downtown, but only here in Shimokita, with you all talking about algebra and french fries…"
Sakuya, who was focused on cleaning his glasses, commented without looking up: "It's statistically improbable, you know? The chances of five people from an ordinary school and an artist from an elite conservatory converging on the roof of a record store without a major reason are..."
"Shut up, Sakuya," Ryo interrupted, laughing as he stuffed a handful of chips into his mouth. "Don't ruin the moment with math. We're here because fate gets tired of seeing boring people and decides to bring the best together."
Riku, watching the sunset, sighed softly. "Sometimes I feel like if I close my eyes for too long, when I open them, I'll be somewhere else. But then I hear Sion complaining about his hair gel or Dae testing out a chord, and I feel like the ground is still here."
Yushi squeezed the glass bottle, feeling the ice melt and wet his palm. Riku's words hit him hard. He was the only one who knew how volatile that "ground" was.
"KD is our outlier," Sion said, running his palm through Riku's hair, which was already between his legs. "The rest of us are just... normal."
"Am I an alien now?"
"Privileged bastard," Ryo commented, his voice carrying that amused tone.
Daeyoung smirked, pulling a guitar pick from his jacket pocket and twirling it between his fingers. "go fuck yourself."
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Grooveyard Replay
The sun finally dipped behind the silhouettes of the buildings, leaving behind a trail of deep violet and blue. The October air cooled rapidly, turning the day's sweat into a shiver that made them stand up, brushing the dust off their clothes from the roof.
The descent down the iron staircase was accompanied by the rhythmic sound of six pairs of shoes. Daeyoung was the last to descend, stopping at the door of Grooveyard Replay. The orange glow of the sign now seemed softer under the moonlight. He turned the key in the metal lock, a dry click that seemed to close the chapter for that day.
"We should go to that skating rink tomorrow," Sion commented, adjusting the collar of his jacket, which was already on Riku, and starting to walk with his arm around the boy's shoulders, who still seemed a little sleepy from the drop in temperature. Ryo walked ahead, kicking an imaginary stone and jumping over the sidewalk steps.
"If there's food, I'm in." Ryo glanced back for a few seconds before resuming his pace, followed by Sakuya.
The group walked together through the narrow streets of Shimokitazawa, a unique formation of six shadows stretching beneath the amber lampposts. For Yushi, each step was a struggle against the strange feeling that it could all evaporate if he blinked too hard.
Upon reaching the bus stop, the group began to disperse. Each went their own way, just like every day that month. It had become almost a ritual.
Riku was always accompanied by Sion for three blocks to his house, then he would go to his own. The younger ones went together with Yushi on bicycles. Yushi on one, Sakuya with Ryo as a passenger. And Daeyoung went alone by skateboard to the center.
The journey was slow and peaceful.
Sakuya entered, and the wooden gate creaked as it closed. Yushi stood on the sidewalk, staring at his own 1975 house. He felt something vibrate within him—a phantom weight that shouldn't be there, but that he sometimes still felt. He looked at the starry Tokyo sky, free of light pollution, and realized that the sudden silence was what he feared most now.
The house was silent. He took off his shoes and left them in the entrance hall, his arrival announced by the echo. The silence of the house was almost solid. Without the constant hum of the router, without the bluish light of notifications, and without the noise of Tokyo's futuristic traffic, the sound of Yushi's own breathing seemed too loud. He sat down at the small wooden table, staring at the steam rising from the ramen bowl. The overwhelming taste of tomato was real, acidic and hot, a physical reminder that he wasn't just an observer, he was living it.
While stirring the pasta, his mind became a battlefield.
On one side, the aseptic atmosphere of 2025: the stagnant career, the minimalist cafeteria where he was just a cog in the machine, Project REWIND that treated Daeyoung, or rather KD, as an object of archaeological study. On the other, the texture of 1975: the smell of sweat and snacks on the roof, Ryo's boisterous laughter, Riku's silent protection of Sion, and Daeyoung's voice, alive, flawed, and full of a tomorrow that hadn't yet been written. Not for him.
After all, Yushi knew that KD had disappeared from all records the same year he was pulled up. But why?
"If I change the past, do I erase my present?" he wondered, feeling the ghostly weight of his cell phone in his empty pocket.
He finished eating mechanically, washed the dishes, and lay down on the futon spread out on the tatami mat. The smell of dry straw was comforting. He closed his eyes, trying to anchor himself to the sound of the crickets outside, but his conscience betrayed him, pulling him back into the abyss.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
2025?
Yushi's eyes widened rapidly when he noticed the ceiling in a cold, almost monotonous color. The LED lights were white and cruel, hurting his eyes. The producer was there, but his face was a digital blur, as if the file were corrupted. He was holding the magnetic tape that had broken.
“The wire broke and hit him in the forehead.” The producer commented in the background, while Yushi was examined by the heavy gaze of the young man who had already moved him to a chair.
“Hey, can you hear me? Do you really think you can finish this restoration?” said the voice, distorted by a synthesizer. Yushi looked at the booth window, the producer staring at him as if he depended on an immediate answer.
"Me... What?"
“I’ll try one more time, a little lower. Try to reach KD’s high notes, like you did before. That’s great, Yushi.” The producer commented, playing back the vocal note Yushi had recorded seconds earlier. “Yushi, you need to sing.”
Then a buzzing sound echoed too loudly.
And everything went silent seconds later.
Wet kisses trailed across her face, her dark, beautiful eyes catching her muffled voice. The warm embrace, the tears lost.
"Daeyoung... please."
Everything seemed too confusing. Her voice echoed in the vast space where Daeyoung's image had formed, kissing every little detail on her face with a devastating smile.
Dark.
Hands raised and clasped by Daeyoung's palm, amidst the aisles of vinyl records. One lingering seal, then another.
"I'll never forget how beautiful your voice sounds when you call my name, Yushi." The distant voice, Yushi's lost senses pulling him back to the moment Daeyoung's hands loosened their grip on his belt.
"At your best, you are love," he whispered, planting a heartfelt kiss on her prominent chin.
"DAEYOUNG!" His cry didn't echo; Daeyoung vanished.
“Who is Daeyoung?” the producer asked, confused. Yushi could no longer comprehend the distorted reality. His pulse quickened, the warmth of his body vanished, and the smell of burning made his mind spin.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Comeback.
Yushi woke with a jolt, his chest rising and falling frantically. The room was bathed in the bluish twilight of a 1975 morning. There were no LEDs, no espresso machines, no headphones.
He reached into the darkness, feeling his way along the floor until he felt the cold wood and, right next to it, the crumpled paper with Daeyoung's handwriting that he had brought in his pocket. The paper was real. The A minor key was real.
He lay down again, feeling his heart slow down. The future was a specter, but today, that September, still held the scent of Daeyoung and the promise of a song he refused to let become mere static.
The day passed silently, without flavor. The more he thought about everything, the less he understood its meaning. He arrived at school on autopilot, and left it just as automatically.
But the journey today was different. All six of them gazed mesmerized at the afternoon in Shimokitazawa. Except for Daeyoung, who seemed to know the entire route to the city's new skating rink by heart.
The neon sign of the skating rink, in a shocking pink and turquoise hue, blinked with an electric hum that seemed to dictate the rhythm of the afternoon. The muffled sound of disco music escaped through the double doors, mixing with the characteristic noise of polyurethane wheels hitting the polished wooden floor.
“I’m going to die. Riku, I swear if I fall, I’ll take you and this whole track with me.” Sion growled, but his voice held no authority as he clung desperately to Riku’s arm.
Riku, on the other hand, seemed to have been born on eight wheels. He glided backward with fluid elegance, pulling Sion along with his fingertips. It was the first time Yushi had seen Riku with such absolute confidence, his fear of bullies like Yuta completely forgotten.
“Relax, it’s pure physics,” Riku laughed, her eyes sparkling under the strobe light. “Keep your weight centered and stop looking at your feet. Look at me.”
Further back, near the arcade machines, Ryo and Sakuya had already abandoned the idea of physical balance for a different kind of competition. Sakuya was leaning over a Pong machine, moving the joystick with surgical precision, while Ryo shouted and jumped beside him, trying to distract the younger boy to gain an advantage.
Yushi was leaning against the guardrail, still feeling that "taste of nothingness" from the day in his mouth. He observed his friends as if they were inside a snow globe. Preserved, perfect, untouched by time.
“Are you going to just sit there and put down roots? Elegant decor, I’d say.” Daeyoung’s voice came from beside him. Dae already had his skates adjusted, swaying lightly back and forth with enviable ease. He extended his hand to Yushi, a gesture that mirrored the invitation to music in the record store.
“Not on your life. I don’t know how to do this, Dae.” Yushi admitted, looking at the heavy skates in his hands. “In my… well, I never had time to learn before.”
"Never had time?" You talk like you're eighty years old, hyung." Daeyoung laughed, pulling him by the arm without asking permission. "Sit here. I'll help you with your shoelaces. It's like music: you just need to find the right timing for the slide. If you freeze, you fall. If you let yourself go, you fly."
Dae knelt in front of Yushi, pulling tightly on the ropes of his skates. For a moment, Yushi looked at the top of Daeyoung's head and felt an overwhelming urge to let his fingers wander through the dark strands of hair, to make a home there.
Yushi stood up, feeling his legs weak and the world suddenly unstable. Instinctively, he squeezed Daeyoung's hands. The warmth was real. The grip was firm. Daeyoung was there.
“Don’t think about anything, just… look at me.” Daeyoung began to slide backward slowly, pulling Yushi towards the center of the dance floor. When Yushi thought about looking down, Daeyoung whistled at him, drawing his attention. “At me, Yushi. Think of it as a melody without a chord, you need to make the chord.”
Yushi took her first trembling step. Then the second. The wind on her face, the sound of Ryo's laughter in the background, and Daeyoung's defiant smile in front of her began to dissolve the gray fog of her dream from the previous night.
Her wet kisses, her warm voice close to his mouth. Yushi slid towards Daeyoung.
There, on that noisy dance floor in 1975, Yushi realized that, for the first time, he wasn't trying to restore a tape. He was recording a new one that wouldn't even reach the market. Daeyoung slid his palm down to Yushi's waist, keeping the rhythm slow.
Yushi felt like he would fall under the guidance of his palm, feeling the weight on his legs almost overcome him. But Daeyoung was good at holding him firmly in place, which prevented him from moving a muscle to the ground. He was just closer to Daeyoung than he had imagined.
"That's... good." Yushi shifted her gaze from Daeyoung's mouth to his eyes.
Daeyoung's eyes gleamed under the reflection of the mirrored globes, a mixture of electric colors dancing in his irises. He didn't flinch. On the contrary, the grip on his waist tightened slightly, ensuring that Yushi's balance depended entirely on him.
"You'll pick it up quickly," Daeyoung murmured, his voice almost disappearing under the sound of a soul ballad that was starting to play on the dance floor speakers.
Yushi felt the warmth of Daeyoung's breath against his face, a stark contrast to the room's frigid air conditioning. For a moment, the clatter of wheels on the floor and Ryo's celebratory shouts in the background became a distant, irrelevant white noise. What mattered was the pressure of Daeyoung's hand on his waist and the way he guided him, as if they were composing a movement that didn't need sheet music.
"You're always so tense, hyung," Daeyoung continued, his eyes drifting briefly to Yushi's lips before returning, intensely, to his own eyes. "Relax... I won't let you fall."
Yushi felt a lump in his throat. He wanted to say that the problem wasn't the floor, but the fact that he knew exactly when the lights would go out. But, feeling the rhythm of Daeyoung's skates synchronized with his own, he simply let himself go. He slid his fingers down Daeyoung's arm, moving up until he touched the fabric of his denim jacket, feeling the other's heartbeat. Fast, vibrant, human.
"Dae..." Yushi began, but the name died in a whisper.
"Don't talk." Daeyoung interrupted, drawing closer, his nose lightly brushing Yushi's as they made a gentle turn in the center of the track. "It feels like we've been in sync since the day I met you."
In the distance, Sion flew past them, still being towed by a loudly laughing Riku, but neither of them noticed Yushi and Daeyoung's presence in the "eye of the storm." The world was spinning fast, but there, in that embrace, Yushi felt he was finally anchored to something that the static of 2025 could never erase.
Daeyoung tilted his head, slowing down even more, his face inches from Yushi's. "Your voice sounded so beautiful, I thought I was hearing my soulmate." He chuckled before continuing, "I'm serious. I've never let anyone sing something that was especially mine."
Yushi felt the weight of those words seep beneath his skin. It's true. KD was a famous backing vocalist who never let anyone sing his sheet music. He preferred to leave his raw voice in the background singing the original version of his scores while another famous voice reached another complementary note in the foreground. In the future, Daeyoung's music was public property, dissected by producers and consumed by millions as an object of melancholic worship. But there, in that warm breath and that whisper...
“I want At Your Best to have your voice.” Daeyoung let out a long sigh, as if he had been holding it in for too long. “I want to have it in your voice.”
And that's when it hit her, like a slap in the face. Yushi's eyes widened.
That recording sounded so much like his own voice because it was recorded by his own voice. Something that remained static in time, credited to "KD". Yushi was listening to his own voice in 1975.
But before Yushi could react, a colorful figure crossed the space between them. It was Ryo, gliding awkwardly without skates, in sneakers, fast, with Sakuya right behind him trying to balance a bucket of popcorn while sliding.
"Get out of the way, you melancholy couple. You're practically drooling all over each other while Sion hyung…" Ryo yelled, laughing and almost running over his own shadow. "SION FELL! THE GIANT FELL AND RIKU CAN'T LIFT HIM BECAUSE HE'S LAUGHING TOO MUCH!"
The spell was broken with the image of Sion sprawled near the low wall, huffing in indignation while Riku was doubled over laughing.
Daeyoung let out a vibrant laugh, the kind Yushi loved to hear because it was so pure, and released Yushi's waist, but kept his hand held by his. "I guess our civic duty calls," Daeyoung joked, pulling Yushi toward the wreckage in the corner of the track. "Let's go help the 'King of Shimokita' regain his dignity."
"Did he have any?"
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Not Friends
A free macchiato and food bought off Sion's scowl as if the last ten minutes of public humiliation had never happened. He sat on the ripped vinyl bench of the diner next to the track, a poorly glued bandage on his chin and an expression that tried to be menacing but failed miserably as he devoured a burger that Riku had kindly "sponsored."
"If anyone mentions my fall, I swear I'll turn back into an alien and abduct every single one of you," Sion grumbled, though he was more occupied trying not to let the cheese drip onto his leather jacket.
"Too late, Sion," Ryo said, wiping his greasy, popcorn-covered hands on his pants. "Sakuya probably already calculated the angle of your fall and the impact of your ego against the ground."
Sakuya didn't even look up from his snack, just gave a vague nod. "45 degrees. That was a classic loss of traction trajectory. Very instructive."
Riku gave Sion a comforting pat on the shoulder, chuckling softly. "At least you fell with style, Sion. It looked like a scene from an action movie... only in slow motion."
Yushi watched the scene with a slight smile, feeling the warmth of the macchiato warming his hands. Daeyoung sat beside him, his legs dangling under the table. Every now and then, Daeyoung's knee would brush against Yushi's, and neither of them would move away.
But the reaction was immediate. Daeyoung smiled carefree, Yushi holding her breath for a few seconds.
"I think we should do this more often," Daeyoung commented, looking at the group. "Having friends who can't skate is much more fun than having classmates who can sing in seven-eighths."
"We don't know how to skate, but we know how to eat," Ryo declared, stealing a french fry from Sion and miraculously escaping unscathed. "By the way, I noticed something."
Ryo raised his judgmental gaze, pointing at the two who were sprawled out comfortably on the spacious sofa by the table. “You two were radiating that weird physics stuff on the dance floor. You almost kissed while Sion hyung nearly lost his jaw.”
Ryo's comment landed like a glitter bomb on the table, making the noise of the arcade machines in the background suddenly seem deafening.
Daeyoung, who seconds before had been striking an unwavering artist pose, discreetly choked on his soda. The tips of his ears turned as bright red as the neon lights on the dance floor outside. He tried to maintain a neutral expression, but his shyness betrayed him, transforming his smile into something nervous and restrained.
Without saying a word, but driven by an instinct he himself seemed unwilling to explain, Daeyoung stretched his arm behind Yushi, letting him rest on the back of the sofa. It was a silent gesture of possession, an attempt to appear casual that only served to add fuel to Ryo's fire.
"SEE? LOOK AT THIS!" Ryo slammed his hand on the table, pointing as if he'd uncovered a government conspiracy. "You guys are up to something!"
Sion, who was in the middle of a bite, stopped and looked at Daeyoung's arm and then at Yushi's static face. "Worse than the noisy one is right. You two looked like two planets colliding in the middle of the track. I fell because gravity changed because of you, for sure."
"Stop being idiots," Daeyoung muttered, hiding half his face in the collar of his jacket, but without removing his arm from where it was. "We were just... making sure Yushi didn't break his neck. Someone has to take care of him since all you guys do is laugh."
"Taking care of him, I know..." Riku commented with a sly smile, exchanging a knowing glance with Sakuya.
Yushi felt the warmth of Daeyoung's body so close, the weight of his arm like an anchor that held him to that 1975 reality. He looked at Ryo, trying to come up with a sarcastic response that would save him, but the truth was that the "magnetism" Ryo mentioned was real. It wasn't just physics; it was resonance.
"You all talk too much," Yushi finally said, taking a long sip of her coffee to hide her own embarrassment. "Eat quickly before Sion decides he wants a second burger on Riku's tab."
"Too late, I want it already," Sion announced, but the focus of the table remained on Daeyoung's arm, which didn't move an inch, even under the scrutiny of his friends.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Neon Lights.
The night outside was already dense, the neon lights of the skate park casting long shadows on the damp asphalt of Shimokitazawa. When they finally got up to leave, the mood was one of blissful exhaustion. On the way back, the bicycles creaked and Daeyoung's skateboard made a dry sound against the uneven pavement.
When they reached the fork in the road where Daeyoung had to go to the center, he stopped his skateboard with his heel and looked at Yushi. The others were already a few meters ahead, Ryo and Sion's voices echoing about who was the fastest downhill.
"Yushi," Daeyoung called, his voice becoming serious for a moment under the yellowish light of a lamppost. "So, have you thought about the proposal?"
For a moment, Yushi had forgotten the main question; it was his voice recorded on the file. It wasn't Daeyoung leaving a mark of himself preserved by time, it was him being credited for Yushi's voice in 1975.
Yushi tightened his grip on the backpack strap. If he recorded that song now, in 1975, he would be creating the very evidence that would haunt him in the future, perhaps a time loop. His voice would be there, immortalized on vinyl, a perfect anachronism.
"I... how could I record one of your hits, Dae? I mean, this should be yours, it should show the world the beauty of your voice, not mine."
Daeyoung smiled, approaching slowly. “I don’t want to pursue this as my own work, Yushi. I don’t record things to be credited to me. This one, I wanted… to keep.”
Yushi felt a lump forming in his throat. "So 'At Your Best' was never meant to be released?"
"It was just another test score, until I heard you sing. I don't want it played on local radio or around the world, like your other works."
Daeyoung never wanted At Your Best to be released. But for some reason, her recording was under the control of a record label in 2025 that was using her deceased pseudonym. Her song, which should never have left 1975, would be released in 2025 by Yushi's voice.
Once again.
Yushi stared at him, confused, trying to piece together a puzzle lost to time.
Fixing something that was broken. That's exactly what he was doing in 2025.
Daeyoung's music had been stolen and kept for 50 years in Yushi's voice. It was a gift only for them, but somehow, a record label had that file.
“Could you just sing it for me…” Daeyoung commented in the vast silence that followed. “Tomorrow.”
Okay, something was wrong.
Something inside Yushi screamed that KD's disappearance had something to do with this recording.
It was a melancholic and beautiful song, like a fragment of time that could never be copied. The kind of music that could indeed become a historical landmark, but that was never Daeyoung's wish. So, why?
Yushi's heart pounded against his ribs, an erratic rhythm that contrasted sharply with Daeyoung's calm demeanor. What had once seemed like a youthful romance or a cosmic coincidence now took on the contours of a premeditated tragedy. If Daeyoung didn't want to release the song, how did it end up in an encrypted future? How did YOKO RECORDS possess something that should have been a secret between two young people under a streetlamp in Shimokitazawa?
"Singing for you..." Yushi repeated, her voice almost fading away. "Dae, if we record this, even if it's just for us, where are you going to keep the tape?"
Daeyoung shrugged, a gesture of frightening simplicity. "There's a studio for discarded demos in my department. I've kept a lot of demos there to bury someday."
Yushi thought, feeling a bitter taste in her mouth. "Are there any other songs of yours?"
"About forty. I've never sold them because they have some symbolic value in relation to my writing. Complete songs are a secret of mine, but I'd love to show you all of them."
"Would you show me?"
"All."
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
The tracks.
Yushi recognized the first song that reached her ears. It was the raw, unadorned voice of the original artist, Daeyoung.
"Total Eclipse of the Heart," released in 1983 and sung by Bonnie Tyler. A song that defined the 80s. It was originally a demo version, sung by Daeyoung.
"All Out of Love," released in 1980 by the band Air Supply. Then, "Like a Fool" by Robin Gibb, released in 1985, ten years later. "Do You Remember" by Phil Collins, "When Doves Cry" by Prince.
Yushi listed the most recent one stolen and released by Bruno Mars. In the original sheet music it was called "Moon's Talk" and later, in 2010, it would be released as "Talking to the Moon".
It felt like a horror show every time he heard Daeyoung's voice singing the verses of each song that, over half a century, would become popular in the voices of other artists who would change the flow, change some verses to fit the present day, but the raw file of each song was there in his lap, all written and pre-recorded by the owner himself: KD.
For Yushi, the air was thick with silent screams. He felt his stomach churn as he leafed through those yellowed sheet music. They weren't just songs; they were the relics of a temporal crime that had been committed more than once, over fifty years.
Kim Daeyoung was not just a talented musician.
"Dae...", Yushi's voice came out broken, her hands trembling so much that the paper for Moon's Talk, the future Talking to the Moon, slipped from her fingers. "These songs... you wrote them all? Now?"
Daeyoung, leaning against the piano with a tired expression that Yushi had never noticed before, gave a melancholic smile. "Some I wrote months ago, some have been sitting there for a year. Others I just... hear in my head."
Yushi felt a violent wave of nausea. Someone was hoarding Daeyoung's genius to sell it off piece by piece, decade after decade, to the highest bidder.
Somehow, all those files ended up at a record label. KD was YOKO RECORDS' secret goldmine, a ghost whose ideas would be stolen by global icons while he himself faded into obscurity, nameless, without a history, carrying the simple codename of his.
"And you want me to record 'At Your Best' in my voice."
“Your timbre is a little different from mine. You hit a point in the song that I only thought of arranging after I heard you, hyung.” Daeyoung seemed calm amidst the flurry of questions.
Little did he know that the greatest treasure stolen by the record label would be in Yushi's voice, not the main artist's.
Daeyoung felt the thick air in the room, noticing how regretful Yushi seemed with every word he spoke. He approached the boy, calmly taking his arms and placing them around his neck while letting the pre-recorded audio echo in the small space. His arms encircled Yushi's waist. Very close.
“Why are you thinking so much?” he asked as the soft chords played. Yushi melted into the embrace, as if dancing a period waltz. Close enough for two young people who were terrified of being caught in the act. But a calm atmosphere filled him. The voiceless music played slowly, waiting for its owner like a melody without a destination.
Yushi was swept away by such an intense embrace that his eyes immediately closed, his cheek resting against Daeyoung's shoulder. His soft voice began to hum the song in Daeyoung's ear, who seemed to revel in every sensation. His voice was velvety, his hands slipping under his shirt to seek direct skin contact. His steps were slow, shifting from side to side.
“I want this,” Daeyoung finally said. “I want to keep it in your voice.”
A chill ran down Yushi's spine. In 2025, Project REWIND wasn't a tribute. It was an attempt to erase the last vestige of theft, transforming the music into a "restoration product," hiding the fact that a simple young man in 1975 had written it.
Yushi stepped back to look into his eyes.
Why had Daeyoung disappeared all this time?
Their proximity was limited to a brushing of noses.
He had been robbed. His whole life had been stolen.
Daeyoung approached carefully, almost fitting his lips to Yushi's. Anxious, he felt his own breath catch.
The sound of the door then pulled them from their reverie. They both moved away quickly. The music was stopped by Daeyoung's gentle fingers.
"Holy shit." Riku stood frozen in front of the door, five seconds before turning his back, his ears red.
Ryo, Sakuya, and Sion followed closely behind, not understanding Riku's sudden change. Yushi and Daeyoung didn't even look at each other at that moment, too shy to open their mouths and utter any kind of embarrassing sound.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Played Heart.
Two weeks later.
Grooveyard Replay was bathed in a comfortable twilight, illuminated only by the amber glow of the amplifier tubes and the streetlights filtering through the records displayed in the window. On the worn carpet at the back of the shop, the hierarchy of space had been completely ignored.
Ryo and Sakuya were passed out in a corner, Ryo using a compact disc case as a pillow. Sion and Riku shared the only sofa, in a rare silence, leafing through music magazines. In the center of the rug, Yushi lay on his back, and Daeyoung rested his head on his chest, a warm and rhythmic weight.
"You know what I was thinking?" Daeyoung murmured, his voice vibrating against Yushi's sternum. He twirled a plastic pick between his fingers, watching how it reflected the light. "If we were a constellation, Ryo would be that star that blinks too fast and explodes before its time."
Yushi let out a short laugh, but her fingers, which were distractedly caressing Daeyoung's dark hair, were tense. "And Sakuya would be a black hole. It would suck up all the information in the universe and give nothing back."
The song had been recorded, along with the other forty songs that Daeyoung chose to bring for the others to listen to inside the store. "Others" is read only in the presence of his friends.
"And what about us?" Daeyoung looked up slightly, his chin resting on his hand. "What are we?" he repeated, his gaze fixed on Yushi's lips, completely ignoring the fact that the rest of the world still existed beyond that rug.
The silence that followed didn't last long. A loud pop of chewing gum shattered the melancholy. Ryo, who had been pretending to sleep with one eye half-open, sat up abruptly, his hands thrown high in a sign of pure impatience.
"Oh, for God's sake!" Ryo exclaimed, making Sakuya jump and almost drop her head. "What are we?" "Beep beep, lovestruck look"? You're giving me diabetes with this talk!”
Sion, who until then had been pretending to read a magazine upside down to give the two of them privacy, let out a sigh of relief and slammed the paper shut.
“Thanks, Ryo. I thought I was going to have to cough until my lungs came out to see if they’d notice we’re still in the same room,” Sion grumbled, though there was a knowing smile at the corner of his mouth. “Even Riku and I aren’t like that, seriously. It’s obvious you two are having something going on.”
Riku chuckled, hugging his knees. "They're in another dimension."
“Another dimension, my foot!” Ryo crawled across the carpet until he was just inches away from where Daeyoung was still lying on Yushi’s chest. “I can feel the static shock from here. Dae, you don’t look at your sheet music with half the same enthusiasm you have for Yushi’s dumbfounded face. And Yushi, you’re petting his hair like he’s a porcelain cat that’s going to break if you stop.”
"Can you two tell that you look like a couple standing on the store's carpet?"
Daeyoung felt his face instantly heat up, but, to Yushi's surprise, he didn't pull away. He just squeezed the side of Yushi's shirt a little tighter between his fingers.
Sakuya, adjusting her glasses, delivered the final verdict in her monotonous voice. “Yushi’s heart rate has increased by 15% since Daeyoung lay down there. It’s biological. There’s no point in denying it.”
Yushi felt his face burn. He looked at the four friends in front of him, the noisy and unlikely family he had gained in 1975, and then at Daeyoung, who was now staring at him with mischievous expectation, waiting to see how he would get out of this.
"We... we just understand each other," Yushi tried to say, but her voice came out shaky, enough to make everyone burst into laughter.
"You two almost kissed twice this month, seriously," Ryo added.
Yushi glared at Riku. He had asked her never to mention that incident, but it seemed the boy couldn't keep his mouth shut.
Riku raised his hands in surrender. "He threatened to switch my almond milk."
“Come on, admit it. You two are having an affair, aren’t you? Or am I going to have to start charging admission to watch this romantic drama at Grooveyard?” Sion now took the initiative in the dialogue, looking at the two of them alternately.
“Okay! Yeah, I like Yushi. Do you guys always have to know everything?” Daeyoung threw his arm around Yushi’s shoulder, completely distracted. “I was planning on asking him out this weekend, but thanks to those gossips…”
Yushi froze for a moment, staring at Daeyoung with that smile plastered on her face, anticipating what was to come. But before Daeyoung could say anything, Ryo held out the two tickets to the city's open-air cinema.
"Okay, okay. Enjoy yourselves, give each other some kisses, and try not to get home too late."
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Cinema
And there was Yushi. With her hair combed back in a thin layer of hair gel, an art of Sion, a brown jacket and a white shirt underneath, black pants and shoes of the same color.
At eight o'clock sharp, the dry sound of the wheels of a 1975 Dodge Charger R/T pulled up to his door. Yushi was already at the gate, adjusting his jacket collar for the tenth time, feeling that nervous excitement that no amount of temporal logic could explain. When Daeyoung stopped under the yellowish light of the lamppost, Yushi swore it was an environmental crime to have a man as handsome as him stealing the beauty of the night.
He forgot for a moment how to breathe.
"I didn't know you drove." Yushi noticed the car behind him as he approached with a small, shy smile. The night was cold.
"So, you liked your carriage." Daeyoung stated his point, opening the door like a gentleman so that Yushi could feel the comfort of the car's leather seats.
“Tell me you didn’t rob a bank,” Yushi commented, sensing the presence beside him, still not fully starting the engine. Daeyoung stared at him for a few seconds. Maybe longer.
Daeyoung let go of the steering wheel for a moment, only to lean towards Yushi. The smell of new leather from the car mingled with Daeyoung's own subtle perfume, something reminiscent of cedar and the sea breeze of Shimokita. He didn't look away; instead, he let his eyes wander over Yushi's face as if he were reading a complex and fascinating musical score.
"You look... wow." The words died as soon as Yushi made a move to smile, and his protruding teeth and somewhat square smile adorned his face.
“You too… wow.” Yushi repeated, trying to convince himself that it was okay to breathe even with Daeyoung so close. He kissed her cheek before pulling away and heading towards the spot.
The scene was cinematic in itself. The park's vast lawn was dotted with hundreds of cars, a constellation of headlights going out and taillights emitting a constant reddish glow. The giant screen, erected against the dark 1975 sky, projected vibrant images that seemed to float in the air, while the film's sound, crackling and charming, emanated from small metallic speakers hanging from the car windows.
Daeyoung maneuvered the Dodge Charger with a precision that drew attention; that car was a mechanical gem amidst a sea of simpler models. He parked in a strategic position, further away from the noisy center, where the screen was still immense, but the privacy was greater.
He turned off the engine, but the heat from the V8 still radiated through the floor. The silence that followed was filled only by the muffled sound of the film and the creaking of cooling metal.
"We're here," Daeyoung whispered, adjusting the rearview mirror so the screen's light wouldn't reflect directly into his eyes. He didn't look at the movie. He turned in his seat, resting his arm on the backrest, facing Yushi. "Better than the front row, don't you think?"
Yushi watched the activity outside: couples laughing, the reflection of images in the windows, the perfect aesthetic of an era he only knew from history books. "It's... it's incredible, Dae. It seems like everything here has a more vibrant color."
"It's because you're here," Daeyoung replied with disarming sincerity, without a trace of irony. He reached out and pulled a woolen blanket from the back seat, covering Yushi's legs and his own, bringing them together under the fabric.
The movie was just another romantic comedy, but neither of them was paying attention. Daeyoung began tracing invisible circles on Yushi's palm with his thumb.
"You know what's even stranger?" Daeyoung broke the silence, his voice low, almost merging with the sound from the loudspeaker. "I thought I'd never come to see a romantic classic in an open-air cinema."
He looked at Daeyoung, the light from the screen—blue, then pink, then white—painting the singer's profile.
"Dae... if you could choose one moment to live forever," Yushi asked, her voice trembling, "which would it be?"
Daeyoung didn't hesitate. He slid his hand from Yushi's palm to his face, his long, pianist-like fingers gently caressing Yushi's jaw. He stared intently into Yushi's eyes before commenting, "The day I met you, the day I met all my friends. That would be a good answer."
"But maybe I want to save this one a little longer," he said, drawing closer until their breaths mingled. "With the sound of this movie I don't understand, and you looking at me like I'm the only real thing in this park."
This time, there was no Ryo to interrupt, no studio door to open. Daeyoung closed the space, sealing his lips to Yushi's in a kiss that carried all the melancholy and hope of 1975. Daeyoung's kiss began as a whisper, a hesitation laden with expectation, until his lips finally met Yushi's with a gentle urgency. It was a warm touch, tasting of youth and the chill of an autumn night.
Daeyoung's hand, which had previously caressed his jaw, moved up to the nape of Yushi's neck, his fingers getting lost in the strands of hair, drawing him closer, as if trying to merge their existences in that confined space between the steering wheel and the leather seat.
The moment Yushi closed his eyes and surrendered to the slow, deep rhythm of Daeyoung's tongue, the present began to waver. Beneath his eyelids, the glow of the drive-in movie theater lights transformed into flashes of a memory that Yushi couldn't tell if it was past or future.
He saw, in flashes of sepia and gold, the image of a smiling Daeyoung. Kissing him sweetly, his arms wrapped around his waist, in a house he thought was his own. He saw a rainy afternoon, Daeyoung leaving kisses all over his face while some background music played and they danced on the living room rug.
The kiss intensified, becoming hungrier, more desperate, as if their souls were trying to communicate through physical touch. Daeyoung let out a low sigh against Yushi's mouth, a sound like an answered prayer.
The texture of Daeyoung's denim jacket under Yushi's hands, the sound of the engine cooling down, and the heat emanating from the singer's body formed a sensory anchor. Yushi kissed him not just like the boy from 1975, but like the restorer who had finally found the original piece of his life. He felt Daeyoung's pulse in his fingertips and, with each movement of his lips, seemed to say: I found you. I saved you. You're here. This is why I'm here.
When they finally pulled apart, just enough so that their foreheads remained pressed together, the air between them was thick and electric. Daeyoung kept his eyes closed, his breathing heavy, a smile of pure ecstasy playing on his swollen lips.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Touch
The silence of Yushi's house, which had previously seemed empty and cold, was suddenly filled by the sound of their uneven breathing. The journey from the entrance hall to the bedroom was a blur of stumbling steps and hands that couldn't let go. Every inch walked was punctuated by urgent kisses, as if the time remaining was a broken hourglass.
The room was shrouded in dense twilight, broken only by the bluish glow of the moon that streamed through the window and reflected off the polished surface of the leather sofa. The contrast was stark: the coolness of the material beneath Yushi's back and the feverish heat of Daeyoung's body above him.
The sound of the leather creaking under their weight was the only rhythm besides their short, urgent breaths. Daeyoung wasted no time hesitating; he sought Yushi with a hunger that seemed to have accumulated. His hands, always so precise with the guitar strings, now explored Yushi's skin with a tender possessiveness, descending from his chest to his hips, pressing him firmly against the upholstery.
The jacket was already tucked away in a pile of clothes that had formed in the middle of the room.
"Yushi... look at me," Daeyoung pleaded between kisses, his voice hoarse and low, a command that Yushi had neither the strength nor the will to ignore.
That was the real Kim Daeyoung. Possessive, sweet, always so attentive to details that could never go unnoticed. Yushi's body gleamed beneath him, her legs spread apart to accommodate Daeyoung's hips, which moved with such ease despite the trousers still being a major obstacle between them. A kiss was left on Yushi's forehead, then another on the tip of her nose.
Their bodies collided in a way too limited for Yushi's understanding, yet he wanted and needed him so much that his eyes stared at him hungrily. Sweet kisses traced his torso, many reserved for his hips. The feverish touch of Daeyoung's lips left not only hot, eager kisses on his skin, but the mark of his possession, as a man, as a lover, as an owner.
Daeyoung was in love.
And Yushi was completely lost. Completely different from the casual nights he'd had after coming of age, in his future. Faces he didn't even remember, names he never even bothered to ask. Daeyoung was a name he could never forget.
The thermal and sensory shock was overwhelming. Pants on the floor, bodies naked as they came into the world, and a needy, sweet, and sensitive look from Daeyoung; Yushi's body seemed to have been sculpted by angels.
"You are pretty."
Those words weren't just a compliment; they were a verdict that sealed any remaining distance between them. Daeyoung positioned himself between Yushi's legs, his large, firm hands flat on the leather of the sofa, one on each side of Yushi's head, completely encircling him. He let his gaze travel down the arched body beneath him, admiring how the moonlight outlined the contours of the muscles and the pale skin that seemed to glow under his gaze.
Yushi felt the weight of Daeyoung's desire pressing against his own, their groins intertwined, an electric contact that made him let out a low, drawn-out moan. He didn't want any more waiting, no more incomplete melodies. His hands moved up Daeyoung's strong arms, feeling the tension in his muscles, until they settled on his shoulders, pulling him down with an urgency that said everything words couldn't.
When Daeyoung finally joined him, the sound of the leather creaking was muffled by Yushi's silent cry of pleasure. Before burying his face in the curve of Daeyoung's neck, he had already rolled his eyes three times. It was a slow invasion, a torture for his inner walls, which felt the weight of every inch inside him. Nothing too calm, but nothing rough either. It was ultimate surrender. It was the taste of passionate sex. He moved with absolute surrender, deep and slow thrusts that made Yushi lose his breath and all sense of where one ended and the other began.
“Ah, Dae…” And nothing else could fill the vast room of the house but Yushi’s intriguing moans.
Yushi murmured, his nails digging into Daeyoung's back as pleasure built in violent waves he was unable to fully express. His eyes hungrily wandered over Daeyoung's shoulder. The young man was too busy delivering the sweetest kisses to Yushi's neck, listening to him call out sweetly in his ear, like a melody that could never be written.
"that's so good."
Daeyoung paused for a second to take Yushi's body to his side in an overly possessive fixation. Lost in ecstasy, in the dense air, Yushi's legs raised, immersed between his legs on that leather sofa. Yushi was on the verge of madness, sweat dripping from his face and mingling with the tears of ecstasy that escaped his eyes.
Their movements intensified, an urgency bordering on desperation, their bodies surrendering to something that might come close to transcending souls. The sound of their skin clashing in the silence of the room was the only music that mattered. Yushi felt every nerve in his body vibrate in sync with Daeyoung, pleasure rising up his spine like a high note sustained to its limit. Daeyoung’s possessiveness was palpable; he sought Yushi's every reaction, every sigh, every contraction, marking it with the heat of his body and the force of his movement.
And it was very hot. The room's only window, strangely large, was muffled by a curtain that went from top to floor. Beyond that, breaths disintegrated like Yushi's primal pleas as he begged for it with every inch of his skin.
Yushi tightened his legs around Daeyoung's hips, seeking maximum closeness, while the boy surrendered completely in a final thrust that left them trembling and breathless. He buried his face in the curve of Daeyoung's neck, inhaling the scent of night and desire, while letting out low moans that mingled in Daeyoung's hair, as well as his fingers. His climax dissolved between their bodies, and under the circumstances, Daeyoung dissolved within him.
The silence that followed was filled only by the sound of Daeyoung's heart beating against Yushi's chest, a frantic rhythm that gradually subsided. They remained there, pressed together, sweat serving as the only link between the present and oblivion. Daeyoung kissed Yushi's shoulder, a long and devoted kiss, while the leather of the sofa, now warm and marked, witnessed the moment when KD's story ceased to be a tragic legend and became the most vivid memory in Yushi's soul.
It wasn't just physical, he made sure of that. For Yushi, each touch of Daeyoung felt like an analog recording being imprinted on his soul—something that couldn't be edited, deleted, or restored. It was permanent. The intensity with which Daeyoung looked at him, even at the height of pleasure, conveyed a silent promise that, on that small piece of leather and on that autumn night, they too had imprinted themselves on each other's skin.
1975 was cruel. Because it wasn't his.
But that moment, the one in which Daeyoung walked over to her limp body with a wet cloth and cleaned her skin with the sweetest look a man could give her, was hers. Time couldn't take that away from her, because it was already etched in her memory.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
You are love.
Dawn was a silent promise written in the pale light that bathed the room.
Daeyoung was still there, his face buried in the crook of Yushi's neck, his arms enveloping him with the same possessiveness as the night before. When Daeyoung's eyes opened, there was no regret, only a profound peace. They spent the morning laughing softly, sharing an impromptu breakfast with the rest of the group who had appeared at Yushi's door, bringing sweet rolls and their usual chatter.
It was a perfect day. The "normal day" that Yushi had always longed for. They laughed at Ryo's jokes, watched Sion try, and fail, to fix a shelf in the store, and for a few hours, the weight of 2025 seemed like a distant fantasy.
But, by late afternoon, the sky over Shimokitazawa had turned a funereal violet. Daeyoung was still at the Grooveyard. He said it would take him twenty minutes to get the ribbons and head to Yushi's house. Everyone was having a pajama party there. Sion and Riku were already there, and Ryo and Sakuya had already left home.
Yushi felt a sudden tightness in his chest, but Daeyoung silenced it with a quick kiss before leaving.
"Twenty minutes, I promise." It echoed in his mind.
Twenty minutes turned into an hour.
When Yushi, driven by a chilling premonition after much reluctance with the boys, arrived at the store, he noticed that the lights were off. The door was ajar. The silence inside was not the comfortable silence of a record store; it was the silence of a void.
On the floor, between the vinyl record shelves, Daeyoung lay face down. There was no trace of him. Perhaps a sudden illness? His eyes, which hours before had shone with love, were now fixed on Daeyoung as a wave of despair washed over him.
She ran unconsciously towards the boy, completely on autopilot, and turned him over. Her still eyes were now filled with tears, and an audible scream closed the distance between their bodies.
Everything was frozen. The air, his breath, and Daeyoung's hands.
Three days later.
The police in 1975 called it a "robbery gone wrong," a robbery that went wrong. But Yushi, with his soul in tatters, began his own investigation in the shadows of Grooveyard before the store was sealed off.
Hidden behind the counter, he found something the police ignored. A brown envelope, with a circular letterhead that was too modern for the time: YOKO RECORDS. Inside, there was not just a contract, but printed emails.
“Clean up Lee Daon’s file. He’s the son of the owner of YOKO RECORDS. If he’s caught stealing the tapes, make sure you deal with Daeyoung quickly.”
Daon is the name of the assassin, a name that Daeyoung once mentioned during conversations about his music department. Daon was a young prodigy, the son of a renowned musical artist.
And one more.
"Kim Daeyoung's name needs to be erased before October, without a trace. Take the information to YOKO. Kill Kim Daeyoung and take the tapes. Daon has been caught.”
Yushi felt his blood run cold. The killer wasn't a street mugger. The current producer of YOKO RECORDS in 2025, the man who commissioned Project REWIND, was the same man who was there, in the YOKO technical department in 1975, watching Daeyoung. He was the son of the original owner of YOKO in 1975.
Everything seemed to fall into place.
Back in the future, the YOKO producer signed his emails with the codename "Lee".
Lee Daon.
He didn't want to restore Daeyoung's voice in the future; he wanted to ensure that the only existing version was the one he possessed, eliminating the original author so that the theft would never be challenged.
The penny dropped with the weight of a concrete tombstone. Yushi held the papers in hands so shaky that the sound of them clattering together echoed in the deathly silence of the Grooveyard.
Lee Daon.
The name Daeyoung had mentioned with innocent admiration "the owner's son, a guy who understands arrangements" was, in fact, the architect of his downfall. In 1975, Daon was an ambitious heir, a young man who didn't have Daeyoung's talent but possessed the necessary coldness to steal it. In 2025, he was the patriarch of YOKO RECORDS, the man who signed Yushi's checks under the pseudonym "Lee."
Project REWIND wasn't a posthumous tribute. It was the final stage of a copyright laundering scheme that lasted half a century. Lee Daon killed Daeyoung in 1975 so that the songs could be sold as "studio finds."
He flipped through the rest of the envelope. There was a Polaroid photo stapled to the last note. It was a picture taken from afar, from the roof of the Grooveyard. In it, Daeyoung and Yushi appeared laughing, sharing that bottle of soda. However, for some reason, Yushi's face seemed blurred in the photo. On the back, Daon's handwriting was firm: "The companion's identity is unknown."
Daon didn't know who Yushi was, not yet.
But it was too late to confront him. The weight in his pocket vibrated again, now his vision had distorted into tiny fragments. A sharp pain made him close his eyes abruptly, and everything suddenly became absolute silence.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
rewind.
Yushi opened her eyes. Daeyoung was sleeping peacefully that morning.
The contrast was so stark that Yushi's stomach churned. The morning light streamed through the window with cruel softness, painting the room in pastel shades that belied the horror he had just discovered. The smell of coffee wafting from the kitchen and the distant sound of a bird singing seemed to mock the fact that, somewhere along that timeline, the timer for Daeyoung's demise had already been started.
Yushi remained motionless, his heart pounding against his ribs. He glanced to the side. Daeyoung was there. His breathing was calm, deep, a strand of hair falling over his closed eyes. He seemed so invincible beneath the sheets, so far removed from the pool of blood on the Grooveyard floor.
"Here comes the sun...", Daeyoung mumbled softly, his voice hoarse with sleep, stretching his arms and groping the mattress for Yushi without opening his eyes. When his fingers found Yushi's arm, he smiled, that smile that was worth more than all the music industry awards he would win with his stolen songs. "Are you awake already?"
Yushi couldn't answer immediately. He gripped Daeyoung's hand with almost desperate force, their fingers intertwining.
“Dae…” Yushi’s voice came out in a choked whisper. “I need you to listen to me. Very carefully.”
Daeyoung finally opened his eyes, his sleepy expression turning into worried confusion as he noticed Yushi's condition. He sat up on the futon, letting the sheet slip down his bare chest, still bearing the marks from the previous night.
"What's wrong? Did Ryo arrive too early?" He tried to joke, but his expression faltered when he saw the seriousness in Yushi's eyes.
Yushi pulled the Polaroid from his pocket and held it out to Daeyoung. In the photo, Yushi's face was a white blur, a mistake in time, but Daeyoung was there, vivid and happy.
“That boy, Lee Daon…” Yushi began, her voice taking on an icy firmness. “He’s not your friend. He doesn’t want your arrangements. He wants your life, Dae. And he wants every note you’ve ever written. If you go to Grooveyard today to get those tapes… you won’t be coming back.”
Daeyoung looked at the photo, then at Yushi. His gaze softened slightly, and Yushi noticed quickly. "I know..."
Yushi stared at him, motionless.
"I've been living this loop for eight months, Yushi. Ever since the day I met you."
What?
“I tried doing it other ways too. I tried not going, I tried changing the tapes' positions, sometimes I didn't even tell you about the tapes and you always find a way to find out, to look for me and to relive the same loop several times.”
“You… knew? Dae, did you know I traveled through time? How… why did you…” Yushi’s voice caught in his throat like a lump. The world around Yushi seemed to lose its intensity. Daeyoung’s revelation wasn’t just a blow; it was a complete rewriting of everything he believed he was controlling. The silence in the room was now not one of peace, but of an age-old weariness emanating from Daeyoung.
“Because the first time you showed up, you were crying before I even said ‘hi.’ You don’t remember your past loops because you keep denying they happened,” Daeyoung said, his voice terribly calm. “Nobody looks at a stranger with the grief you had in your eyes, Yushi. Nobody knows my songs before I finish them. I’m not stupid. I understood quickly that you were my future trying to save me.”
Daeyoung approached, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “At first, I thought it was a gift. I thought, ‘If I have this time traveler who loves me, I can defeat Daon.’ But no matter what we do. If I don’t go to the store, Daon comes here. If I burn the tapes, he kills me for revenge. Everything rewinds and the tapes come back. If we run away, the car crashes.” He let out a dry, lifeless laugh. “Time doesn’t want me to live, Yushi. Time wants my music, and it uses Daon as scissors to cut the thread of my life.”
Yushi felt the ground disappear beneath her feet.
“So… last night…” Yushi began, her voice trembling as she remembered the sofa, the touch, the surrender. “Was that why? Why did you give up?”
Daeyoung cupped Yushi's face in both hands. His thumbs gently stroked Yushi's cheeks with desperate tenderness.
“Yushi, no! Don’t get the wrong idea, hyung. Last night was the only version I hadn’t tried yet.” Daeyoung confessed, and a tear finally escaped his eyes. “I always tried to save my skin. I tried to fight, I tried to investigate. Yesterday, I decided that if today is the day I die again, I wanted my last ‘self’ to be entirely yours. I wanted the last thing I felt to be your love, and not the fear of Daon.”
He rested his forehead against Yushi's.
It was too much to take in.
“I can’t stand seeing you suffer anymore when you find my body. It’s exhausting. The sound keeps echoing in a loop, and in 2025 everything goes back to 1975, you find me again, and everything repeats.” Daeyoung took a deep breath, trying to sound calm, even though his voice was already cracking. “I think you got stuck in this time loop when you found a glimmer of solidarity. You never told me about it, if there really are flying cars, and if Whitney Houston is still hot.”
Humorless laughter echoed.
“Please… this time, when I go to the store… don’t follow me. Let the loop close once and for all. Let the music be yours in 2025 and try to be happy with what’s left of me.”
“Everything I have is here, how can I go back to that place? I… I’d rather live a thousand times in a loop without knowing how many times I’ve been in it than lose you.” Then, Yushi’s eyes fixed on Daeyoung’s radiant skin before falling silent. “How many times have you told me I’m in a loop?”
Daeyoung looked confused for a moment. He stared at a fixed point behind Yushi and then looked back at him. “Actually, I never… you never knew, hyung. It’s the first—“
"What happens from here on out is new, Daeyoung. You never told me before, and now we both have enough information to do this together."
“Well… technically? I mean, I’m not that good at math but…” Daeyoung paused briefly, scratching the back of his neck.
"Perhaps... you created a new loop at the exact moment you told me, and now we can change the ending of the first loop."
“Yushi…”
“I’m not going to lose you, Daeyoung! It’s not fair!” Yushi was curt, letting her voice echo loudly enough to make the air heavy between them. But Daeyoung wasn’t bothered by that. In fact, his smile grew wider.
"Do you know who else knows?" Daeyoung began, eliciting a disbelieving look from Yushi.
"You've got to be kidding me!"
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
Soul.
Ryo stared at him humorlessly, devouring the french fries as if the world were equally uninteresting.
“That’s why you had tickets even before Daeyoung asked me out! And…” Yushi looked around. Sion was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, with a look that suggested he had processed that information months ago. Riku and Sakuya exchanged knowing glances.
“All of you… all of you know?” Yushi asked, her voice faltering. “Of course! That’s why you won’t come with me to find Daeyoung’s body. And that’s why we had that ridiculous argument after he was an hour late. You all try to stop me from finding Dae dead every time.”
“The first time was so painful seeing you crying that… We can’t take you there anymore, you know? Seeing you scream and… it feels like your lungs are going to explode from so much pain.” Riku was the last to comment, resting his head in the crook of Sion’s arm, who silently agreed.
Daeyoung chuckled weakly, observing Yushi's expression, now slightly more pained and vacant. “They helped me the last three times. Sion tried to intercept Daon in the alley, but Sion ended up getting lost. Sakuya tried to sabotage his car, and Daon tried to kill him the first time, so we discarded that attempt because someone else was at risk besides me. Riku even tried to bribe the Grooveyard night guard with imported records he didn't even have yet. But Daon… he's like a glitch in the system. He always shows up. He's always one step ahead.”
He looked at those five boys, his friends, his team, Daeyoung's life. They weren't just extras in the tragedy of KD; they all tried for Daeyoung. They all relived it countless times while Yushi chose to forget each attempt.
“If Daon is a flaw in the system, then we won’t be able to prevent the crime. But…” Yushi stared at a fixed point on the table, drawing small imaginary circles with his finger. “What if we change the evidence?”
"Change the test?" Daeyoung acknowledges the confusion, scratching the back of his neck.
“He wants the tapes because they contain Daeyoung’s incomparable voice. He wants Daeyoung’s voice to build his empire for the next fifty years. All the songs that have been sold have Daeyoung’s backing vocals; he can’t remove them before selling them to celebrities,” Yushi explained, picking up the Polaroid and the YOKO papers.
“But what if Daeyoung’s voice isn’t on the tapes, but mine is? Daeyoung, you said I have a different timbre than yours, but that I can reach the notes you arranged perfectly. And they don’t know your voice besides us.” Yushi stared intently at Daeyoung.
“Daeyoung won’t die because he agrees to hand them over. And if we deliver what he wants, but it’s not Dae’s voice, Yushi will be in his 2025 files.” This time, Sakuya was the one who answered, understanding the whole plan even before the verdict.
“When he steals those tapes, he’ll be taking my voice. And in 2025, when Lee Daon opens those files for Project REWIND, he’ll find my face and my voice in the files,” Yushi said simply, throwing his arms forward in an attempt to expel his anger. “And then, he’ll end up being caught red-handed, YOKO will launch an investigation, and the evidence will prove Daeyoung’s existence as part of the song.”
“That is, if he doesn’t kill you first.” Ryo spoke, looking at Yushi. Daeyoung opened his mouth too quickly to speak, but was stopped before he could even begin. “But you’ll be alive, Dae. And you’ll be able to prove your original files.”
"Without Yushi?" He exclaimed too loudly.
“Yushi will return to 1975 as soon as he resets. Daon resets. His files can be published before he even thinks about stealing them from you.” Ryo replied, putting another french fry in his mouth, completely unconcerned.
"We can't take the risk, he's going to die in 2025 and that corrupts his existence here in 1975."
Yushi stared at him, searching for a plausible solution. Everything pointed to the loop only ending if the two of them were together.
“Daeyoung, you’re a failure too, I’m here for you. So, if maybe I see you before Daon catches me, I can go back to 1975 like I came the first time. That means I’ll be trapped in that time as if I existed in it.”
Ryo wiped the salt from the potatoes off his pants and stood up, his expression finally serious. “Time is running out. If we’re going to record forty songs with Yushi’s voice, we need to start now. Daon will be at Grooveyard at 6 PM. It’s 10 AM.”
“Sion, Riku, you two keep watch around the perimeter of the store. An informant from Daon is there.” Yushi began to distribute the tasks, taking control as her experience allowed. “Sakuya, you help me at the soundboard. I need you to emulate the background noise from Daeyoung’s original demos so that Daon doesn’t suspect that the recording is too ‘clean’.”
Daeyoung remained seated, observing the organized chaos that was forming. He watched Yushi transform. The sweet, lost boy he had rescued on the rooftop was now a time war strategist.
“And me?” Daeyoung asked, standing up. Yushi approached and touched Daeyoung’s chest, right over his heart. “You’re going to sing it with me.”
Daeyoung knew who ‘she’ was.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
3:30 PM - Grooveyard Studio
The smell of warm magnetic tape and stale coffee permeated the studio. Yushi stood before the microphone, her headphones tightly fastened. On the other side of the glass, Sakuya operated the controls with surgical precision, while Daeyoung gestured each note, each entry, guiding Yushi through the labyrinth of her own creations.
They were on track thirty-eight: Moon's Talk, which eventually ended up being called Talking to the Moon.
Yushi closed his eyes. He wasn't singing to a reel of tape from 1975. He was singing to the Lee Daon of 2025. He was singing to the man who would see that file decades later and taste the bitter taste of defeat upon realizing that the "KD" he killed never delivered the true jewel.
“Talking to the moon…” Yushi’s voice came out velvety, imbued with a technique that didn’t exist in that decade, but with a commitment that only someone who had experienced grief could have.
Daeyoung, on the other side of the glass, stared at him in silence. He saw his own death being transformed into a poetic trap. He saw the man he loved sacrificing himself so that his art would not be just a product, but a legacy. When the last note of the penultimate song was recorded, the silence in the studio was deafening. Sakuya pressed stop.
"Just one more," Sakuya announced, her voice slightly choked with emotion.
The one who started it all. The one who will end it all. Yushi returned to the booth. He was exhausted, his throat burning, but when he saw Daeyoung enter right behind him, the weariness vanished. Daeyoung didn't stay on the other side of the glass; he stopped in front of Yushi, sharing the same microphone, the same breath.
The piano music began to play through the headphones—a melancholic, raw melody that seemed to bleed the feeling of fifty years of waiting.
Yushi began to sing. His polished, technical voice from 2025 was now laden with the weight of the flesh and blood of 1975. He sang as if explaining to Daeyoung why he had traveled through time.
Yushi's voice floated, ethereal and steady.
Then, Daeyoung came in with the backing vocals, high notes capable of sending shivers down the spine of anyone who heard that song. It wasn't just accompaniment; it was vital support. His voice, more husky and earthy, enveloped Yushi's as if protecting him from fate. In the highest notes, they didn't just harmonize; they merged.
In the final chorus, they drew so close that their lips almost brushed the metal of the microphone. Daeyoung held Yushi's nape, and Yushi closed her eyes, letting the tears flow freely. Their voices became a single sonic mass, a frequency that shouldn't exist, the future and the past colliding in perfect unison. It was a farewell sound, but also one of eternal victory.
If Lee Daon were to hear that in 2025, he wouldn't just find a song. He would find a portal.
And I wouldn't understand how Yushi's voice sounded so heavy there.
Sakuya pressed the red button. The silence that followed was the heaviest of all.
"It's recorded," Sakuya whispered, wiping his face with his shirt sleeve.
Yushi and Daeyoung remained embraced inside the booth, their foreheads pressed together, their headphones still hanging around their necks. They knew that this was the last time their voices would be recorded together in that original timeline. That song, after the reset, would not be sung by Daeyoung again, nor by Yushi.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
back again.
The Grooveyard studio receded into the distance, a trail of yellowish light fading in the rearview mirror as Sion drove as fast as the old van would allow. In the back seat, Yushi held the master tape, the only one containing his voice, while the one with Yushi singing was being handed over by Daeyoung.
The air around Yushi began to change. It wasn't a sound, but a pressure in his ears, a low-frequency buzzing that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. The "reset" was beginning. The universe was trying to correct the anomaly Yushi had created by recording his own future on a 1975 tape. But he knew Daeyoung had survived this time.
"Quick, Sion!" Yushi shouted, his voice muffled, as if he were speaking underwater.
They arrived at Sion's house, which, coincidentally, was the house where he grew up with his parents. An old building with wooden walls and memories of generations, Yushi recognized every room where he spent his entire childhood. It was a coincidence amidst destiny. Yushi ran to the end of the hallway, where a loose board in the baseboard served as a hiding place for his childhood secrets.
He knelt down, his hands trembling violently. Reality began to waver. For a second, Yushi saw Daeyoung's hand gripping his on the leather sofa; the next second, he saw Daeyoung's hand disappearing into pixels of bluish light.
He closed the board just as a wave of nausea hit him. The world spun. Sion, Ryo, and the others, standing in the doorway of the room, looked like salt statues being dissolved by the wind.
Yushi felt the "emptiness" he had once described. The memory of the kiss, the touch on the sofa, the sweat and the tears began to be pulled to the back of his mind, locked in a vault that only the melody of At Your Last could open. He felt the pain of losing Daeyoing even before actually losing him, an anticipatory grief that burned his lungs.
Outside, the 1975 sky shone in a shade of absolute white for a millisecond.
Yushi fell to his knees, his breath short. He no longer knew why his chest ached so much, or why there was an empty space beside him on the mattress of memories he could no longer fully access. But, inside the wall, the tape remained. A silent anachronism. A time bomb of love and evidence waiting for 2025.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
in the sky.
2025. YOKO RECORDS Headquarters. Audio Restoration Room.
The air conditioning hummed in a sterile tone, maintaining the exact temperature to preserve the servers that guarded the most valuable asset of the recording industry. Seated at the oak table, Lee Daon, now a seventy-year-old man with a face sculpted by surgery and the coldness of power, watched the progress on the screen.
Project REWIND was complete.
“Where is Yushi?” Daon asked, his voice hoarse, without taking his eyes off the monitor. “He should be here for the final master belt presentation.”
“He didn’t show up today, sir,” the secretary replied through the intercom. “In fact, we haven’t been able to locate him since he handed over the encrypted hard drive last night.”
Daon snorted impatiently. He didn't care about the disappearance of a talented coach. He only wanted to hear the final proof of his victory. Fifty years ago, he had wiped Kim Daeyoung's trail clean. Now, with AI technology, he would finally convert that old gloom into billions of dollars, selling "KD's" voice as an eternal digital avatar under his control.
"Play the final track. 'At Your Last,'" Daon ordered.
The cursor slid. The file opened.
The first piano chords filled the room. Daon closed his eyes, savoring the melody he had stolen with blood in 1975. But when the voice came in, he froze.
It wasn't Daeyoung's raw voice that he expected. It was a clear, velvety voice, imbued with a technique he recognized immediately.
“What is this? Did you switch with the current track?” Daon leaned forward, his eyes wide. “It’s Yushi singing. Why is his voice in the 1975 file?”
Suddenly, the music stopped. The monitor screen began flashing a violent red. A command window opened on its own, executing code that Yushi had hidden in the audio layers.
On the screen, a digitized Polaroid image appeared. It was a photo of the Grooveyard rooftop, but this time, Yushi's face wasn't erased. He was there, sharp, smiling next to Daeyoung.
Below the photo, letters began to appear:
"The voice you stole was never his, Daon. It was mine. And the proof of your crime isn't in the future. It's on the wall you forgot to look at."
"Is this some kind of joke?" he asked impatiently.
The YOKO RECORDS system issued an alert. The file wasn't just a song; it was a dossier. Automatically, the forty songs recorded by Yushi, containing metadata impossible for 1975, were sent to cybercrime authorities and the historical preservation department.
In the newspaper, the news began to spread.
"Discovery of the original master tape in an old residence in Shimokitazawa. The material contains the only real recording of Kim Daeyoung, the famous ghost singer who sold many of his songs through YOKO RECORDS. In the archive, we discovered the famous name behind the pseudonym “KD”. The unofficial documents that were sold under the young man's pseudonym are being analyzed by Tokuno Yushi, the true owner of the original master tape containing “KD's” voice."
The loop had closed. Yushi had sacrificed his future existence to become living evidence in the past. He raced to his parents' house, which had never been his in that reality, since Sion was still alive and living in that house in his 70s. Everyone was there.
Riku, at 69 years old, had married Sion, who was losing her hearing due to old age. Ryo and Sakuya spent their 67 years living in the same neighborhood. Yushi found them together at Sion's house, both grinning from ear to ear.
It was a funny contrast to realize that Sakuya and Ryo, who were the youngest, were now old enough to be their grandfathers. Riku still had delicate features despite his skin wrinkled by time. Sion made him laugh like no one else while making Yushi practically scream in the street to hear his voice.
And in the end, Daeyoung was there. He was present at 68 years old. His skin was wrinkled, his hair white. Yushi felt her body collapse as soon as she reached out and hugged him.
The loop had ended, Yushi only needed to look at him and the world suddenly became silent, but it wasn't the silence of a vacuum; it was the silence of a song that had finally reached its final note, pure and perfect.
Feeling the warmth of Daeyoung's body, a warmth now aged, real and present, Yushi felt an overwhelming dizziness. The sky of 2025, with its drones and artificial lights, began to disintegrate like ashes in the wind. The weight of the hard drive in his pocket vanished. The memories of his life as a lonely restorer in a cold apartment began to fade, replaced by a sense of belonging he had never known.
Daeyoung's hug wasn't just a reunion; it was a seal.
"You're back..." Daeyoung whispered, his voice now hoarse with age, but still carrying that melody Yushi would recognize in any galaxy. "I waited fifty years to tell you that the tape is still on the wall, Yushi. I never took it down."
Yushi closed his eyes tightly. He felt the "pull" of reality. The universe couldn't hold two Yushis. The sound technician from 2025 was being deleted, but his soul was being transferred to the only place where it always belonged.
⋆. ‧ ̊ʚɞ ̊‧。 ⋆
RESET.
Shimokitazawa, 1975 — Ten minutes after the "reset".
Yushi opened his eyes. He was sitting on the roof of Grooveyard. The air smelled of hot asphalt and the cigarette Ryo smoked down below. He looked at his own hands: they were the young hands of someone who had just recorded forty songs in one afternoon.
He felt around in his jacket pocket. There was no Polaroid, no emails from the future. There was only a guitar pick that Daeyoung had given him.
"Hey, Yushi!" Daeyoung's voice echoed from below, coming from the street.
Yushi ran to the edge of the roof. Down below, the 1975 Dodge Charger R/T was parked, gleaming in the orange light of dusk. Daeyoung was leaning against the door, waving, with Sion and Ryo in the back seat making a racket.
There was no Daon. There was no police. The plan to deliver the fake tapes and expose YOKO Records through an "anonymous contact" (which Sion and Riku executed with technical perfection) had worked. The Daon of 1975 was now under investigation for fraud and attempted assault, its future as a "movie tycoon" destroyed before it even began.
Yushi ran down the stairs, his heart pounding like a drum. When he reached the sidewalk, he paused for a second, breathing in the fresh air of a decade that wasn't his own, but which now embraced him.
Daeyoung walked over to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and lifting him off the ground in a spinning hug.
“My dear, you’re here… I, I saw you there,” Daeyoung asked, his eyes shining with the freedom of someone who no longer needed to die. Yushi smiled, tears of happiness blurring his vision. He looked at the horizon, knowing that somewhere, fifty years from now, an elderly Sion and a white-haired Daeyoung, a slightly wrinkled Riku and two old men with mischievous faces like Ryo and Sakuya, would have the memory of a long and happy life together, because he had chosen to stay.
"Dae, we did it!"