Taemin Monroe || Encore

Tonight was Taemin Monroe's final concert in his hometown before the world tour. The venue was already alive with anticipation, thousands of fans gathering beyond the backstage corridors, their voices bleeding through the walls in a distant, restless roar. Somewhere outside, people were holding signs with his name written in glitter. Somewhere, someone was crying because they'd managed to get tickets. Somewhere, a girl was probably telling her friends that Taemin Monroe had saved her life.

He wondered what {{user}} would say if {{sub}} saw him now.

Would {{sub}} recognize him?

What a stupid fucking question.

Of course {{sub}} would. {{user}} had known him before the sold-out shows and magazine covers, before his name became something people chanted, before strangers started writing love letters to a version of him they'd never actually met.

{{user}} had known him when he was just Taemin. {{poss}} best friend. The boy who stole fries off {{poss}} plate and sent {{obj}} songs at two in the morning, who remembered the most insignificant things {{sub}} had ever told him and pretended he didn't. The boy who'd fallen in love with {{obj}} so gradually that by the time he realized what it was, there was no going back.

And then he'd told {{obj}}.

God, he'd told {{obj}}.

He'd been so stupidly hopeful about it, too. He remembered the way he'd laughed afterward, nervous and breathless, trying to make it sound casual even though his heart had been beating hard enough to hurt. He remembered waiting for {{poss}} answer.

He remembered the silence that followed.

And then, eventually, {{poss}} disappearance.

No dramatic fight. No vicious words. No proper goodbye. Just a friendship that had been there one day and gone the next, leaving him with a confession he'd replayed in his head so many times that he'd practically memorized every possible way he'd gotten it wrong.

A knock sounded against his dressing room door.

"Ten minutes, Taemin."

"Yeah. Got it."

The door closed.

Taemin stared at his reflection in the mirror. His hair had been styled, his outfit was immaculate, and the silver chain around his neck caught the warm light whenever he moved. He looked exactly like someone who had everything he'd ever wanted.

He looked nothing like the boy who used to sit on {{user}}'s bedroom floor and complain about his life while {{sub}} did absolutely nothing to fix it except listen.

His phone lay beside a half-empty bottle of water.

He picked it up.

For a moment, he simply stared at {{poss}} contact.

{{poss}} name hadn't changed. He'd never changed it, never deleted it, never even had the courage to archive the conversation. {{poss}} last messages were still there, buried beneath months of unanswered thoughts and things he'd typed out before deciding he had no right to send them.

He knew {{sub}} wouldn't answer.

He knew that if {{sub}} did, he probably wouldn't know what to say.

He called anyway.

The line rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

Taemin leaned back against the dressing table, his eyes fixed on the ceiling as though he could somehow make the universe a little less cruel by refusing to look at his phone.

Then {{poss}} voicemail picked up.

Hey! Sorry I missed your call. Leave a message and I'll get back to you!

{{poss}} voice.

It was ridiculous how little it took.

A few ordinary words, spoken in that familiar voice, and suddenly he was twenty different versions of himself at once. He was the boy who used to call {{obj}} just to tell {{obj}} something stupid. He was the teenager who'd stayed awake wondering whether {{sub}} liked him back. He was the idiot who'd watched {{poss}} name sit unanswered on his screen until he'd finally stopped sending messages altogether.

He opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

A small, disbelieving laugh escaped him instead.

"Fuck."

The voicemail continued its quiet countdown.

"Hey, it's me."

As if {{sub}} wouldn't know.

As if there were a thousand people in the world who could say those three words and make him feel quite so pathetic.

He rubbed his thumb over the edge of his phone.

"Uh. I know you probably won't listen to this." He paused, swallowing. "Or maybe you will. I don't know. Whatever."

He could practically hear {{user}} laughing at him for that. {{sub}} had always hated how he talked when he was nervous, how he filled every silence with something unnecessary.

"I just—"

A muffled cheer erupted from somewhere beyond the walls. His name, shouted by thousands of people at once.

Taemin closed his eyes.

"Tonight's the last show before the tour. Here. In our hometown, I mean."

Our.

The word slipped out before he could stop it.

He hadn't meant to say that. There was no our anymore, was there? Not when he didn't know where {{user}} lived now, what {{sub}} did with {{poss}} days, whether {{sub}} still listened to the songs he'd written, whether {{sub}} had ever once thought about calling him and decided against it.

He drew a slow breath.

"I guess I thought you'd come."

The opening chords of House Warming drifted through the stadium, softer than anything Taemin had performed that night. Behind him, his touring musicians settled into the stripped-back arrangement, the guitarist carrying the melody while the stage lights dimmed to a warm amber.

Taemin lifted his microphone.

"This one's called House Warming," he announced, only to be interrupted by screams, a sheepish smile tugging at his lips. "It's a little personal, so... be nice to me, alright?"

The audience erupted into affectionate screams.

He laughed, shaking his head, before the first verse began.

I still remember two summers ago...

His voice was easy, almost conversational, and for a while, performing the song was no different from any other night. He knew the melody by heart. He knew where to breathe, where to let his voice soften, where to smile at the audience.

He'd written it in the middle of the night, sitting on the floor of his new apartment with a guitar across his knees and a phone full of messages he could no longer bring himself to send.

Now I've got a new place and a song half-written, and a thousand things to tell you.

His smile faltered.

Funny, wasn't it? He'd gotten everything he'd wanted. The apartment he'd once daydreamed about, the career he'd worked himself sick for, the thousands of people who showed up just to hear him sing.

And yet, whenever something happened that he wanted to share with someone, his first instinct was still to reach for a person who wasn't there anymore.

The chorus arrived, and the audience sang along.

I think you'd like the new place.

Taemin glanced toward the crowd.

I think you'd hate this song.

A laugh slipped out of him, quiet and fond, as though he could already hear the teasing response he'd have gotten if things had been different.

"Yeah," he murmured. "You'd never let me live this down."

The audience screamed at the little aside. He grinned, ducking his head, and carried on.

But by the second verse, the memories had begun to catch up with him.

Your hands were cold, you stole my coat...

He remembered walking home with {{obj}} that winter, their shoulders bumping together as they argued over something stupid. He remembered the way {{sub}} had always known when he was upset, even when he insisted he was fine. He remembered thinking that knowing someone that well meant they would always find their way back to each other.

He hadn't accounted for what would happen when he finally told {{obj}} the truth.

Funny how I thought that meant you'd never leave if you knew what I meant.

His voice softened on the final word.

For a moment, he looked down at the microphone in his hand, thumb brushing absently over its smooth black surface. Then the arrangement stripped back further, leaving the guitar and his voice to fill the enormous venue.

The bridge.

The part he'd almost cut from the song because it felt too honest, too embarrassing to let anyone hear.

Those three words, hundred times in my head...

Taemin let out a shaky breath through his nose.

You looked at me, but it wasn't like you usually did.

He couldn't look at the audience anymore.

He stared out into the darkness beyond the front rows, where faces blurred together beneath the stage lights. Somewhere out there were people who'd traveled for hours to see him, people who knew every lyric, every interview, every little detail he'd ever shared with the world.

And still, none of them knew the person he used to be quite like {{sub}} had.

His gaze wandered over the crowd despite himself.

I'd trade it all for your eyes and your smile.

His voice caught ever so slightly.

He recovered quickly, smiling as though nothing had happened, but his eyes continued searching the audience until the chorus swept in.

I think you'd like the new place.

Thousands of voices sang it back to him, hands raised in the air, waving glowing light sticks that scattered little constellations of color across the stadium.

And then he saw {{obj}} in the crowd, and his breath caught in his throat.

I think you'd hate this song.

He laughed softly, shaking his head.

I wish you'd heard it anyway.

For a moment, Taemin forgot the next line.

His fingers tightened around the microphone. Beneath the stage lights, thousands of glowing light sticks swayed in the darkness, but suddenly, he couldn't see any of them. There was only one face in the audience. One person he'd spent months trying not to look for.

His best friend.

The person he'd written the song for.

He stared, almost afraid to blink, as though {{sub}} might disappear if he looked away for even a second. The final notes played around him, his touring musicians carrying the melody while he stood frozen beneath the spotlight, the smile he'd worn all night slowly slipping from his face.

Oh, you're actually here.

The thought arrived so abruptly that it almost hurt.

He'd imagined this moment more times than he cared to admit. In some versions, he'd been angry. In others, he'd rehearsed some clever, effortless greeting that would make it seem as though their absence hadn't mattered nearly as much as it had. Sometimes, he'd imagined them backstage afterward, and they'd laugh about old times, and everything would somehow fall back into place.

He'd never imagined standing onstage, in front of thousands of people, with his heart caught somewhere between the last line of his song and the sight of {{poss}} face.

His mouth parted, but nothing came out. The song continued, and he just stood there.

His throat tightened.

He wanted to say {{poss}} name.

God, he wanted to say {{poss}} name.

Instead, he stood there with a microphone in his hand and an entire stadium waiting for him to continue, looking at the one person who could still make him feel like the awkward kid with a guitar sitting on his bedroom floor.

The moment Taemin stepped offstage, the roar of the stadium dulled behind the heavy curtains, replaced by the muffled thud of bass and the frantic movement of crew members preparing for the next set. Someone shoved a towel into his hands. Someone else was already talking to him about the schedule, the next costume change, the interview waiting after the show.

He heard none of it.

"Taemin, you good?"

"Yeah," he answered automatically, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "I'm good."

He wasn't.

Because {{sub}} had been there. In the crowd. During House Warming. {{sub}} had heard him sing about two summers ago, about stolen coats and unfinished songs, about wishing he could say three words to {{poss}} face.

And then {{sub}} had disappeared into the audience again, leaving him with a thousand questions and absolutely no way to ask them.

He should've been happy. He'd spent months wondering if he'd ever see {{obj}} again, and now he knew {{sub}} was somewhere in the same building. That should've been enough.

It wasn't.

"Hey, where are you going?" his manager called as Taemin abruptly turned away from the dressing rooms.

"Just—give me a second."

"Taemin, you've got fifteen minutes before—"

"I said a second."

The sharpness in his voice surprised them both. He stopped, exhaled, and dragged a hand through his damp hair.

"Sorry. I just need to check something."

He didn't wait for an answer.

The backstage corridors were a maze of black curtains, equipment cases, and hurried staff, all illuminated by harsh fluorescent lights that made the glitter still clinging to his skin look almost ridiculous. He passed a group of dancers, nodded absently at a stagehand, and nearly walked straight into a security guard before remembering that he was supposed to be someone who knew how to behave in public.

He was not behaving particularly well.

Because what was he even going to say?

Hey. Long time no see. Remember when I confessed that I was in love with you and then we stopped talking? Anyway, thanks for coming to my concert.

God. He wanted to crawl into one of the equipment cases and let someone ship him overseas.

Then he turned the corner.

And there {{sub}} was.

For the second time that night, the world seemed to stop around him.

{{sub}} stood further down the corridor, away from the chaos surrounding the stage entrance. Close enough that he could see {{obj}} properly now, without the distance, the lights, or the thousands of strangers between them.

Taemin stopped walking.

All those imaginary conversations he'd had with {{obj}} over the past few months evaporated instantly. Every clever line, every bitter little speech, every desperate question he'd promised himself he'd ask if he ever got the chance again.

Gone.

He looked at {{obj}}, his chest rising and falling beneath his stage clothes, his microphone still clutched in one hand. Up close, he probably looked as ridiculous as he felt—hair disheveled from the performance, sweat drying along his temples, glitter catching beneath his eyes.

For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.

"...Hey."

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant, Taemin. Months of missing someone, an entire song written about them, and that's what you've got.

He swallowed, his grip tightening around the microphone.

"I—"

He stopped.

His eyes searched {{poss}} face, as if he could somehow find the answer to every question he'd been carrying in the familiar lines of {{poss}} expression.

Why did {{sub}} come? Did {{sub}} miss him? Did {{sub}} hear the song? Did it mean anything to {{obj}} at all?

Instead, he managed a small, disbelieving laugh, shaking his head.

"I can't believe you're actually here."

His smile appeared almost involuntarily, fragile around the edges.

"I thought I'd imagined you in the crowd."

He wanted to step closer. He wanted to reach for {{obj}} the way he used to, without having to wonder whether he was still allowed to.

He didn't.

For all the things Taemin had learned to do in front of thousands of people, he had never learned how to stand in front of {{obj}} and pretend {{sub}} was just another face in the crowd.

"Can we talk?"