SONG ABOUT US || Lee Juyeon || Singer AU

Chapter 30; 2 a.m.

I reached for my phone and opened the message.

We're doing a shoot with award-winning photos from vogue magazine today. Everyone prefers you. Ju x

I clenched my jaw. Surely the teenage girl was supposed to stalk the idol, not the other way round?

Still, holding my phone in one hand, I began scrolling through Romeo and Juliet videos on my laptop, skimming the descriptions, trying to ignore the voice in the back of my head.

Did Juyeon really mean that or was he just appealing to my ego? Was he hoping to trick me to reply? Shaking the thought away, I tossed my phone across my bed.

My laptop flickered, and I realized that while lost in thought, I had clicked on a random video and it was about to play.

An advert loaded in and when it began, it was the five faces I knew very well appeared on the screen.

"Hey, guys!" My shoulders slumped. They were impossible to avoid.
"We're Cresent," continued Hyunjae breezily, "and we're here to tell you about a very special single we've just released."

Hyunjae was sitting with the boyz on a leather sofa, in what looked like a recording studio. And a song I didn't recognize was playing in the background.

In the bottom right-hand corner, a little black box read: skip the ad. All I had to do was click it.

All I had to do was click it and get on with my life.

"It wasn't planned," added Hyunjun. "But we've been trying to finish this track for months, and Juyeon finally found the right lyrics." Juyeon was sitting at the end of the row, he smiled distractedly.

Sunwoo took over. "The song's called '2 a.m. (The sound of your heartbreaking), which I think is a pretty cool name. I like songs that tell you what time it is."

"Anyway," said Hyunjae, as Younghoon play-punched Sunwoo on the arm.

"We've decided to release it this week as an unexpected gift for the fans, our moonlights before our new comeback, which comes out next month. We even shot a video which you can watch at the link below."

"So click the link," said Juyeon mechanically, "and check it out. Let us know what you think."

There was something not quite right about Juyeon's expression. It would've been lost in most people, but if you'd ever spent time with him, you'd know. Something was wrong.

"Enjoy!" All five of them said in unison, and the ad faded away. As I sat there motionless, Mercutio's death scene began to play on the screen, and I hit the space button to pause it.

One listens wouldn't hurt, would it?
An old version of Kang Yoona, pre-Juyeon would have laughed at this:

me sitting in my room, alone, unable to concentrate at school work because Crescent had released a new single.

But things had changed, and I wasn't the same person anymore. They had infected me.

And so, plugging my earphones into my laptop, typed Cresent 2 a.m. into the search bar, clocked the top hit, and turned up the volume.

The video began to play. Juyeon, his face half in shadow, was sitting on the edge of a bed in a dark, anonymous-looking hotel room.

The colors were nocturnal, grays and blues, and passing sirens could be heard in the distance.

Slowly, a lightly picked guitar part faded in, and in his rich, jagged voice, Juyeon began to sing. The opening lines stole the breath from my lungs.