Chapter 33: The Press Conference
The Grand Hotel ballroom was a furnace of manufactured glamour. Chandeliers driiced light onto the sea of black ties and cocktail dresses, each crystal spear fracturing the glare of a hundred camera flashes into dizzying rainbows. The air tasted like expensive perfume and anticipatory sweat. Taichi could feel the heat of the lights baking the stylist’s product into his scalp, a stark contrast to the cool, lonely dark of his new dorm room just hours before.
He stood at the long table, a microphone staring up at him like a cyclops eye. To his right, the other members of Starlight—Jun, Ryo, Kenta, Hiro—chattered with practiced ease, fielding soft questions about the new single’s production. To his left, Yamato was a study in stilled intensity. He looked carved from marble in his black, tailored suit, one hand resting loosely on the table, the other out of sight below it. Taichi knew, with a sudden, electric certainty, that if he slid his own hand down, their pinkies would brush. The memory of the previous night—the creaking bed, the feeling of being so utterly claimed—washed over him, a phantom heat that had nothing to do with the stage lights. He shifted in his seat, the fine wool of his trousers suddenly irritating against his skin.
Sora watched from the shadows of the wings, arms crossed, a wireless headset perched on her auburn hair. Her green eyes tracked the two of them like a hawk. She saw the way Taichi’s usual effortless grin seemed plastered on, how his eyes kept flicking to Yamato and then darting away as if burned. She saw Yamato’s jaw tighten every time it happened.
The questions were routine, until they weren’t.
A reporter from a major music blog leaned into her mic, her voice sharp and curious. “For Taichi and Yamato. The choreography for ‘Honey and Heat’ is being called your most intimate yet. There’s a particular moment in the bridge where the hand-to-hip grip lingers, and the eye contact is… intense. Fans are speculating wildly. Is this a reflection of a deeper, off-stage chemistry?”
A ripple went through the room. Camera shutters fired like a volley of gunfire.
Before Taichi could even process the words, Yamato leaned forward, a shadow of his on-stage smirk playing on his lips. It was a masterpiece of casual deflection. “Our choreographer, Mina, is a genius at storytelling,” he said, his voice a smooth, low baritone amplified through the speakers. “We’re just actors following the script. Though, I’d hope after four years, Tai and I would have at least some chemistry on stage.” He gave a slight, dismissive shrug, the picture of cool amusement. “Otherwise, we’re all in a lot of trouble.”
Polite laughter sprinkled the audience. A perfect, evasive answer.
But then every lens swiveled to Taichi, expecting the Sunshine Prince’s complementary, breezy denial.
The heat in Taichi’s face wasn't phantom anymore. It was a volcanic, undeniable eruption, crawling from his collar up his neck, flooding his cheeks, burning the tips of his ears. The reporter’s words—“deeper, off-stage chemistry”—twined with the sensory memory of Yamato’s voice in the dark: You’re mine. His mouth went dry. He stared at the logo on his microphone, his mind a white, static blank. He could feel the eyes, hundreds of them, and the walls of the opulent ballroom seemed to press inward, the crowd a solid, breathing mass. His throat tightened, a familiar, thin thread of panic—the old claustrophobia—licking at the edges of his consciousness.
He fumbled with the mic in its stand, his fingers clumsily adjusting an already perfect angle. He opened his mouth. No sound came out. He just sat there, blinking rapidly, a live broadcast of a slow-motion crash.
From the wings, Sora closed her eyes and slowly brought a hand to her forehead. You beautiful, doomed idiot.
The silence stretched, becoming palpably awkward. Yamato’s cool mask faltered for a millisecond, his blue eyes cutting to Taichi with a flash of pure, unguarded alarm.
Jun, ever the peacemaker, jumped in with a chuckle. “See? Taichi’s just embarrassed you’d think he’s a bad actor! He takes his craft seriously!” He threw an arm around Taichi’s shoulders, giving him a shake.
The touch jolted Taichi back. He managed a jerky nod, a strangled sound that might have been “Yeah,” escaping into the microphone. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Yamato at all.
The press conference staggered on, but the damage was crystallizing. The journalists’ pens flew, notating the flawless deflection and the catastrophic, wordless blush that followed. The narrative wrote itself in their heads.
Later, in the sanctum of the blacked-out van speeding away from the hotel, the atmosphere was thick enough to choke on.
“Well,” Hiro said, popping a piece of gum. “That was something.”
Taichi was slumped in the far back seat, forehead pressed against the cool window, watching the city lights blur. Yamato sat rigidly two seats ahead, scrolling through his phone with violent swipes. Sora was between them, a buffer of simmering frustration.
“A masterclass in how to say nothing and everything at once, boys,” she muttered, rubbing her temples. “Yamato, your ‘just actors’ line was good. Textbook. Taichi…” She sighed, the sound heavy in the humming dark. “Your face looked like a stoplight.”
“It was hot in there,” Taichi mumbled to the glass, the excuse weak even to his own ears.
“It’s always hot,” Ryo pointed out helpfully from the front.
Yamato’s voice cut through, low and tense. “Just drop it.”
The van fell silent except for the rumble of the engine. Taichi replayed the moment in a sickening loop. The question. Yamato’s smooth, untroubled voice. The way his own body had betrayed him, reacting not with denial, but with a truth so visceral it stole his breath. He wasn't embarrassed by the rumor. He was terrified by its accuracy.
Back at the dorms, they spilled into the hallway, a silent, exhausted troupe. The others peeled off to their respective doors with weary goodnights. Taichi hovered, his keycard in hand, outside his own impersonal door. Yamato stood before his, just three steps away across the hall.
The distance felt canyonesque.
Yamato finally looked at him, his sharp blue eyes searching Taichi’s face in the dim fluorescent light. The anger from the van was gone, replaced by a weary, guarded hesitation. “You okay?”
Taichi nodded, too quickly. “Yeah. Just tired.” He wanted to say more. To ask about the night before, to explain the blush, to scream, to something. But the words were tangled in a knot in his chest.
Yamato’s jaw worked. He gave a short, almost imperceptible nod. “Get some sleep, then.”
He turned and slipped into his room, the door closing with a soft, final click.
Taichi stood alone in the hollow silence. He entered his own empty room, the scent of floral cleaner assaulting him. He didn't turn on the light. He walked to the bed, the scene of the crime, and sat on the edge. He could still smell a faint, lingering trace of Yamato’s cologne on the pillows.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. A news alert. He thumbed it open, the screen’s glow harsh in the dark.
The headline was already trending: STARLIGHT’S ‘SUNSHINE PRINCE’ TURNED SCARLET: Taichi’s Blush Says It All.
Below it was a perfectly captured, high-definition photo. Yamato, smirking, detached, in control. And himself, face aflame, eyes wide and lost, caught in a moment of pure, unvarnished revelation.
He dropped the phone as if it were scalding. It thumped onto the carpet. He stared at the strips of city light cutting through his blinds, painting bars across the floor.
For the first time in his life, Taichi Yagami was fully, agonizingly aware of the weight of a secret, and the terrifying cost of what it might mean to set it free. The blush hadn’t just spoken to the press. It had screamed a truth to him, and now it echoed in the sterile quiet of his solo dorm, refusing to be unheard.