Play my heart

Chapter XIV

 "I thought I heard you talking to someone."

Dawn stands on the doorway, barefoot, hair messed up, same clothes from the day before, and sleep evident on her round features. They look at her at the same time, and she slowly blinks at them, stifling a yawn.

"Oh. You're the... the Enemy, right?"

Darren grimaces as Lee turns a deadpan stare at him.

"Am I," he seethes.

"No you're not," Darren says immediately, waving his hands in front of him. "That's just, um, how we nicknamed you when you kept beating me in competitions. It's in the past."

He barely gets an unimpressed look in return, before Lee settles his attention back on the Dawn situation.

"I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" he asks, voice tense. "As much as I love to be a nuisance, you could have just told me if you're busy today." He starts gathering his scores and Darren panics.

"Stop that!" he blurts out. "You're not interrupting and I'm not busy, so sit down. Dawn was just leaving."

She blinks up at him. "I was?"

Lee huffs at that, shaking his head, and gets back to picking up his things. The air of the room weighs down on Darren's shoulders. There's something else behind Dawn's question, like it's just an excuse for what she's actually thinking. Their eyes lock and he knows what's on her mind: 'I can't stand being alone right now... you make me feel safe'. It sounds more cruel now than it did the night before, and he's just about had enough.

"Yes, I believe you were," Darren states firmly, surprising them both. "I'll see you to the door." He turns at Lee then, gaze intense: "You can start playing through your parts. Enough wasting your time, right?"

Without waiting for an answer, he puts the violin down and paces out of the room, gesturing for Dawn to follow him. He grabs her coat from where she left it the night before and hands it to her in a bit of a rush. When they stop at the main door, she looks confused. Like she can't imagine why he's not immediately submitting to her wishes.

"Call me if you need anything, yeah?" he says before opening the door. He even manages a smile, and a sincere one at that. "Take care, you silly girl. I'm sure Adryan will reach out soon enough."

That last sentence is enough to drown all the questions that were seemingly itching on her tongue a second ago. She nods and walks out the door without saying goodbye. Darren stares at her back for half a minute before closing the door and heading back toward the music room.

Contrary to what he expected, he doesn't find Lee practicing—instead, he's absentmindedly petting Nini as she walks around his socked feet. They both turn their attention to him when Darren shows up at the entrance.

"Sorry about that," he mutters, shoulders slumping under the leftover awkwardness in the room.

Lee opens his mouth, surely to reprimand him, but closes it without uttering a sound. He presses his lips, a weird, considering look on his face; with a sigh, he seems to change his mind.

"When will you stop pining after her?"

Darren trips over nothing on his way to the violin, choking with his own spit. "Who said..."

Lee waves him off, already exasperated. "You don't have to say it, idiot," he says. "I've heard you play," he gestures to the violin, like that alone explains everything.

Grabbing the instrument with unsure hands, Darren finds himself at a lack for words. Perhaps it makes sense, what Lee is implying. All the feelings he pretends don't exist on his daily life slip through with his playing, changing the color of each note and adding weight to his bow. Is it that obvious? Can everyone else see right through him with just listening to his music?

For some reason, that doesn't sound likely. It might just be Lee Jung.

"She's dating my best friend," he admits, though he's fairly certain Lee already knew that.

"Then why?"

He's been asking himself the same question since the very beginning. Why did he even fall in love with her in the first place, and then, why did he never stop. Why still to this day, when it's been painfully obvious for a long time he doesn't stand a chance, when he witnesses everyday the way their relationship only gets stronger and their feelings only grow deeper. Why still, if she fails to see him as anything but friend A, only existing in her head when Adryan is not around.

"I don't know," he forces out after a minute. He runs his fingers through the violin's curves and, spying out of the corner of his eye, confirms Lee hasn't stopped looking at him. "I'm comfortable around her, I guess. Like I don't have to make an effort," he shrugs. "It's, um. She makes me feel warm, you know? The rest of the world makes me feel nothing, most of the time, or out of place, sometimes. People make me feel numb, distant. She makes me feel something, and something nice at that. Because then there's you."

Lee cocks his head to the side, arched eyebrows as a smile tugs at his lips. "What, I make you feel something?" he teases, sounding too pleased with himself. "Like butterflies in your tummy?"

Darren tightens his jaw, feeling his neck grow warm. "More like a bunch of assassin wasps," he deadpans. Lee's surprise makes him keep going. "Or like spiders crawling up my spine, sometimes. Or like a bloody woodpecker picking at my skull. Or like a thousand red ants stinging my feet."

"Asshole, you would die!"

"Exactly," he nods, and laughter starts rising up his throat. "That's just how you make me feel, I'm sorry, it's not up to me."

Lee goes back to huffing like an angry puppy. "Fuck off, that's so rude. It's not like you're any better."

He proceeds to list off every single way Darren drives him mad, and they waste the next half an hour bickering over who annoys the other the most. It's a tie, at the end, and they finally get on with the rehearsal with their feelings all over the place.