Chapter 16: The New Song
Yamato didn’t come back to the dorm for three days.
Taichi told himself it was normal. Yamato was their main songwriter. He disappeared into the studio sometimes, chasing a melody only he could hear. But the empty bed in the room next door felt like a void. Taichi’s own skin felt foreign, humming with a memory he couldn’t process. He’d catch himself staring at his hand, imagining the ghost of a different, rougher grip.
At night, the silence in the dorm was oppressive. Taichi would roll over on his futon, the echo of his own whimpers in his ears, and press his face into the pillow. He could still smell him. Coffee and incense and something darker, saltier. Yamato.
In the studio, Yamato was a man possessed.
The room stank of synthetic air and cold coffee. He’d slept in fits on the leather couch, a jacket thrown over his eyes. But he didn’t need sleep. He had the memory. It played on a loop behind his eyes, more vivid than any dream.
The exact sound Taichi made when his lips touched his neck. The visceral, hot slickness of his own palm. The way Taichi’s stomach clenched, the muscles fluttering under his tongue. The taste.
He channeled it all into the machine. Synth pads swelled, moody and low, a backdrop for a drum track that pulsed like a frantic heartbeat. He leaned into the microphone, his voice raw from hours of use, and let the words spill out. They weren’t poetry. They were reportage.
Slick skin under fluorescents / A mapped territory from hip to sigh / Your voice breaks on the consonant of my name / And I drink the sound.
He called the file ‘Honey and Heat.’
On the morning of the fourth day, a text buzzed Taichi’s phone.
Yamato: Studio. 11. Got something to play.
The casualness of it was a slap. Taichi stared at the screen, his thumb hovering. What was he supposed to say? Okay? Did you mean what you did? What does this mean? He typed a single letter.
Taichi: k.
The whole group was there, lounging in the control room. Jun was fiddling with a guitar pedal. Ryo and Hiro debated the merits of a new protein powder. Kenta scrolled on his phone.
Yamato looked like hell. His artfully styled hair was just… messy. Dark circles bruised the skin under his sharp eyes. But those eyes were alive, burning with a focused energy that pinned Taichi to the spot the moment he walked in.
“You’re alive,” Ryo said, chuckling. “We were about to send a search party.”
“Got inspired,” Yamato said, his voice gravel. He didn’t look away from Taichi.
“Let’s hear it, maestro,” Jun said, putting the guitar down.
Yamato hit play.
The track was nothing like their usual bright, upbeat title songs. It was a slow, sensual crawl of synth and deep, echoing percussion. Then Yamato’s voice, intimate and rough, filled the speakers.
My hands know the rhythm of your shaking / A frantic tempo, sweat-slick and true / Tracing the valley, a silent claiming / Until the shudders start in you.
Taichi had been taking a sip of water. He froze, the plastic bottle halfway to his lips. The cold liquid felt suddenly viscous in his mouth.
A tongue draws a path from a shallow sea / To the frantic bird beneath your chest / You beg with a word that’s just for me / And I give you the friction you like best.
It was exact. It was a transcription. The navel. The collarbone. The whimper that wasn’t quite a word. Taichi’s ears roared with heat. He could feel every bandmate’s presence in the room like a physical pressure.
The song built, Yamato’s voice growing more urgent, almost desperate.
Is it honey or is it heat? / The confession sticky-sweet / On my skin, a complete / Map of where my mouth has been.
The final note faded into a resonant hum. For a second, there was quiet.
Jun let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Damn, Yamato. That’s… dark. I like it.”
Ryo clapped Yamato hard on the shoulder. “Didn’t know you had that in you, man. That’s real. Who’s the muse? Got a secret love life you’re not telling us about?”
Kenta snorted, locking his phone. “Yeah, seriously. ‘A tongue draws a path’? That’s specific. You’re holding out on us. Is she a fan? A model?”
Hiro nodded along. “The vocals are killer. Really emotional.”
They were all talking, dissecting the musicality, the production. They heard a hot new track. Taichi heard a crime scene. He heard the wet sound of Yamato’s hand on him. He heard his own broken ‘yes.’
His face was on fire. He couldn’t move. He managed to lower the water bottle, his fingers numb. He stared at the scuffed floor, at the cables snaking along the baseboards. Anything but Yamato.
He felt Yamato’s gaze like a laser point on the side of his head.
“Taichi?” Jun’s voice cut through. “You’re quiet. What do you think?”
He had to say something. He lifted his head, forced his eyes to the mixing board, to a random blinking light. “It’s… cool. Really… intense.” His voice sounded thin, strangled.
“Our sunshine prince is scandalized,” Kenta laughed, not unkindly.
Yamato finally spoke, his tone deceptively light. “Just channeling a feeling.” He paused, and Taichi knew, with a terrible certainty, that the next words were for him alone. “Sometimes you have to finally say the thing you’ve been thinking for years. You know?”
The session moved on. Demos were shuffled, schedules discussed. Taichi contributed nothing. He stood by the wall, a smile plastered on his face that felt like a crack in porcelain. He laughed when he was supposed to. He nodded.
But he couldn’t look at Jun, at Ryo, at any of them. Their normalcy was a mirror reflecting his own utter dislocation. And he absolutely, under any circumstances, could not let his eyes meet Yamato’s blue ones, which he knew were watching his every faltering breath, cataloging the damage wrought by the truth set to a perfect, four-four beat.