The next time they met, it wasn’t in the graveyard - it was in the decaying loft above an abandoned theater downtown, where the velvet curtains still clung to the rafters like dried blood and forgotten applause. Kim had texted her nothing but coordinates and a red heart drawn in smeared lipstick. When Suzuka arrived, the air was thick with incense and paint fumes, the windows blacked out with duct tape and old tour posters. Kim sat barefooot on the edge of a stage once meant for operas, surrounded by shards of broken mirror and an old reel-to-reel playing something dissonant and lovely. They looked up as she entered, their smile slow, unreadable. “I wanted to show you where I go when the noise gets too loud,” they said, voice low and rough as gravel. “You looked like someone who could hear the quiet.”

Suzuka gave them a slow, wordless nod and stepped onto the stage as if crossing into some forgotten altar. The old wood groaned beneath her weight, dust rising in soft plumes around her knees as she lowered herself beside Kim, arms hanging limply at her sides. The silence stretched - thick, sacred, and stained by the scent of old incense and rusted metal.

Then, her hand brushed against theirs.

Just a whisper of contact.

But it was enough to make the breath hitch in both of their throats.

Their eyes met - startled, wide - and in that flash of stillness, something hot and crimson flooded their faces. Not the gentle blush of storybook romance, but the deep, full-blooded red of something ancient and instinctive. The kind of red that stained altars. The kind that lingered on teeth after biting down too hard.

“I-I’m sorry,” Suzuka breathed, voice raw, trembling. “My hand… it slipped.”

Kim’s reply was barely audible, more shadow than sound. “It’s alright… Suzuka.” Her name left Kim’s lips like it hurt to say, like it meant too much.

For a breathless heartbeat - two, maybe three - they just looked at each other. No words. Just gazes heavy with something neither of them dare name. A quiet storm swirled between them: longing, fear, wonder - all cloaked in the same velvet hush.

Then Kim looked away, sharp and sudden, as if scorched by the moment.

The silence that followed wasn’t peaceful.

It was a silence that scraped - awkward, sharp, and painfully human.

Until Suzuka, in the gentlest rebellion against the heaviness, let out a soft, breathy laugh - crooked, awkward, and so achingly real it made Kim’s lips twitch into something almost resembling a smile.

They didn’t speak of the touch, or the way their eyes had lingered. But it kept happening.

A glance that burned a little too long.

The ghost of a shoulder brushing shoulder.

And then - the fall.

Suzuka rose to retrieve her sketchbook, but the stage’s warped floor caught her off guard. She stumbled - graceless, sudden - but she never met the ground. Kim was there before she could process the fall, their hands gripping her waist with a force that was almost possessive, almost desperate.

For a moment, everything stopped.

Their faces were inches apart. Her breath tangled with theirs in the thick air. The press of their hands against her waist sent heat roaring through her like a fever. And for the briefest, most dangerous second, Suzuka let herself imagine not pulling away.

_It feels good… _the thought whispered. _It feels like safety dressed in chaos._

But she shook it off, forcing herself back behind the barrier of logic - back behind the voice that insisted that people like Kim didn’t stay. That they were made of stages and spotlight, and she was made of charcoal dust and stars.

Still… was that the truth?

Or just another lie sewn by fear?

When she finally stepped away, Kim let go - but not without reluctance. Their fingers lingered just a moment too long.

Suzuka smoothed her hands over her waist as if wiping away something more than just dust. Her cheeks still burned.

Silence swallowed them again.

Then Kim cleared their throat, the sound low, gravel-laced - a smokescreen for something they couldn’t voice.

“Well,” they murmured, flashing her a grin that was all sharp edges and nervous charm. “I’ll see you later, alright?”

Suzuka nodded, her smile shy, eyes flitting away as if afraid to look too long. “Yeah… later.”

With one last glance - one that held more than either dared admit - Kim slipped off the stage and vanished into the velvet dark of the theater’s wings.

Only when the echo of their footsteps faded did she notice the slip of paper on the stage caught in the fold of old curtains and dust.

She picked it up.

Unfolded it.

Read it.

A half-written letter, scrawled in Kim’s unmistakable handwriting - bold, aching, unfinished:

“Suzuka,

You draw the parts of me I thought I had buried…”

That was it.

Nothing more.

But she read it again. And again. As if the next time would bring clarity. As if the inn would speak what the words could not.

What did it mean?

She wasn’t sure.

But she felt it.

Like a heartbeat beneath the floorboards.