Play my heart

Chapter XV

His phone rings for the second time. Lee's hands hover above the keys as he glares at him in a warning. Darren smiles apologetically and scrambles to take the call.

"Hey. What's up?"

"Nothing, it's, um," Dawn's voice greets his ears. "We're selling a new something at the restaurant, but it's not going too well and I really need the money so I thought... could you and the boys come help us maybe? The business skyrockets when you guys are around."

"Oh, uh..." He hesitates, turning his head at Lee with a question on his eyes. Lee raises an eyebrow. "Well, you see, I'm..."

"Please? It should be only a few minutes. I... I'm saving money to pay off my father's debt, it's kind of urgent."

More urgent than what he's doing, she means.

Darren swallows, shifting in the spot. He takes the phone off his ear and alternates between looking at it and at the pianist. In the end, Lee is the first to lose his patience, clicking his tongue and shaking his head.

"Fucking go on," he grumbles, turning back to the piano. "I'm sure whatever it is, it's important."

Relief and guilt mix in Darren's gut. "It's just a minute, I'll be right back," he says, already putting the violin in its case.

"I'll be here."

It sounds like a promise, so Darren takes it before leaving the practice room in a rush.

It's a freezing Wednesday afternoon, but his helmet protects his face from the biting wind as he drives through the city. He called Connor and Caesar before hopping onto his motorcycle, and they're luckily available to help. Besides, there's not much Connor wouldn't do for a chance to flirt with Dawn's best friend, and Caesar just... he kind of just follows.

The restaurant's new product goes sold out in two hours which, for the rest of them, feels like nothing. For Darren, however, every minute stretches like a lifetime, and his fingers don't stop anxiously drumming on his thigh as his mind drifts towards the practice room.

The sky has already gone black when he parks the motorcycle in front of the school. Despite what Lee said, it's unlikely that he'll still be there, but Darren has to make sure. He stops at the vending machine for a peace offering. Shivering, he trots through the empty hallways; the pull on his stomach gets stronger the closer he is.

He opens the door and the world crumbles around him when he sees no one in front of the piano. Upon further inspection, though, an equally relieved and surprised breath falls from his lips. All the tension vanishes from his shoulders as he steps inside the room, careful to not make a sound.

Leaning his back on the wall under the window, legs stretched in front of him, lips parted and head lolled to the side, Lee Jung is asleep. Darren can't help but smile fondly at the scene. He discovers most of Lee's edge and harshness is due to his personality, because his features appear now soft and gentle.

He takes his coat off, crouches in front of the sleeping musician and drapes it over his frame with great care. Lee doesn't so much as stir in his sleep. Still smiling, Darren sits on the ground next to him and opens one of the coffee cans, setting the other by his side.

Half an hour goes by before Lee starts moving. He burrows further into the warmth of the coat, humming, until his nose brushes the fabric. Darren watches as Lee sniffs the material for a moment, and all the softness in his face is gone when he wrinkles his nose and furrows his brow in distaste.

"Rich kid perfume," he scoffs, voice raspy and low.

"It's cologne."

"Gross."

Lee's glare barely loses a bit of harshness at Darren's coffee offering, complaining that it's gone cold. Darren rolls his eyes and threatens to drink it himself, which is enough to make him accept the beverage.

"You're back," says Lee after a pause, like that's a surprise.

Darren shrugs. "Yeah, well, I said I would be."

"Took you long enough."

"Pfft, shut up. Do you accept dinner as a compensation?" he suggests, feigning nonchalance to hide his hopefulness.

"If you get me dessert too, I'll think about it."

"Deal."

Saturday morning, Lee arrives at his doorstep with a cookie tray and a hand-knitted blue scarf.

"I made these myself, so you can't be sure they're not poisoned."

"What's the occasion?" Darren asks.

Lee kicks his shoes off before walking in, face lacking its usual sharpness.

"It's my mother's birthday," he says. "Try them with me?"

Darren makes tea and they quietly munch on the cookies, which are not half as bad as they'd expected. He pretends not to notice the way Lee keeps looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, but he grows more self-conscious by the second. Is there something wrong with his hair? Does he have something on his face?

They wander into the music room around an hour later. Lee sits down on the piano stool, but doesn't even take the cloth rectangle off the keys, instead remaining weirdly still in front of the instrument. Darren leaves his violin in the case and walks up to him, a bit afraid to scare him away. After some mulling it over, he utters a "make room", and wiggles his way onto the piano stool.

It is, without a doubt, too small for the two of them. They're pressed side by side, from the shoulders to the knees, and for a moment none of them dares to so much as draw a breath. Darren swallows, feeling a shiver climb down his back, and wonders why his heart is beating so hard all of a sudden.

He's being weird now. He does his best to snap himself out of it, and it doesn't really work, but he at least manages to move. Lee tilts his head when Darren uncovers the keys and rests his hands on them, not pressing down just yet. It might be his imagination, but he feels the pianist lean into him a bit more, and that's all the push he needs to start playing.

A huff rolls down Lee's mouth as the first few notes of Schumann's Fantasia flow around them. Darren smiles despite himself. Fantasia is one of Schumann's most intense pieces, of course he had to go and pick that one to play for the guy who kept besting him in competitions. He's never gonna live this down.

The piece lasts around thirty minutes, and Lee stays pressed against him the whole time.  Five minutes in, he drops his head on Darren's shoulder, and he barely manages to keep his playing steady. This is somehow more unnerving than performing in front of judges or an audience, for reasons he's not too eager to decipher. It might just be because a judge will insult him far less than Lee will.

Someone else would probably find the right words to say, or just any words at all. It's the birthday of Lee's deceased mother, and it's weighing him down, Darren can tell, everything about him says things are not alright. Someone else would offer comfort of some kind, or would ask questions, or would just- know what to do.

It's not his case, of course, and it doesn't help the fact that being around Lee makes his thoughts more jumbled than being around anyone else, so he's rendered even more useless now. He can't even be sure why it matters, why Lee's silence tugs at his heartstrings this way.

He doesn't have the answers, or the right words, or some kind of wisdom or insight to offer. Right now, music is all Darren can give him, so he does. He forgets a little about dynamics, for which he's sure going to be roasted, but that's okay. Schumann's Fantasia slips from his fingers and turns into something soft, almost like a lullaby, building around them with the gentle weight of a blanket.

There's a long pause after it's over.

"You missed like two dozen notes, man," the words stumble from Lee's lips, devoid of any edge to them. His hair tickles Darren's jaw. "I can do it better."

He lets out a shaky laugh. "But you didn't."

"Fair."