Voiceprint Echo

The studio was nearly empty at this hour. Lights dimmed to a gentle hum. Ren had wandered there alone, insomnia tugging at his limbs like seaweed caught in tide. Practice hadn’t gone well. Again. His body refused to obey choreography, the sleek AI screens confused more than helped, and Kai’s words still clung to him like frost on a windowpane.
“Stay out of my frequency.”
The memory of it, his tone sharper than the coldest night wind.
Ren sighed and settled onto the edge of the digital stage, gaze lost in the glimmering holographic panels mimicking constellations. He pulled his recorder from his sleeve pocket, the familiar wood worn from years of use. Even 300 years later, it still worked. It still felt like home.
He raised it to his lips, fingers instinctively dancing over the holes. A soft lullaby trickled out, notes winding gently into the cavernous studio. The song his mother used to hum. The one he hadn’t dared play since arriving in this absurd future.
The same one that had opened the rift.
He didn’t know Kai had entered. Not until he heard the breath catch.
Kai stood frozen at the entrance, his tall silhouette motionless in the doorway. His eyes were wide—not in annoyance, not in the disdain he so often wore around Ren—but in recognition.
“You…” he whispered, barely audible. “That song.”
Ren stopped mid-phrase. "Sorry, I—"
Kai walked toward him, slow, deliberate. "Where did you hear that?"
Ren clutched the recorder tighter. “My mom. She used to hum it when I was a kid.”
Kai’s pupils trembled. “That… can’t be.”
Ren blinked. “Why not?”
Kai knelt down before him, something like anguish pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Because that melody… I’ve been dreaming of it since I was seven. It was the last thing I heard before my parents died. I thought I made it up.”
Silence. Then Ren whispered, “Maybe we both didn’t.”
Kai’s hand reached out, brushed the back of Ren’s knuckles. “Sing it. Please. Just once.”
Ren hesitated. Then nodded.
He sang, softly at first, the words clumsy in a language the future had mostly forgotten. But his voice carried the warmth of an old memory, and something flickered in Kai’s eyes.
Kai knelt closer, then closer still, until his forehead rested against Ren’s. “I knew it. Your voice… it was always calling me.”
Their lips met, slow and uncertain.
It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t planned. But it was real.
Ren’s breath caught as Kai deepened the kiss, hands slipping beneath the soft collar of Ren’s performance tunic. Ren’s heart pounded, nerves singing with both fear and longing. Kai’s mouth moved like music against him—firm but tender, lips and tongue coaxing harmony from him with every brush.
“Tell me this isn’t some AI simulation,” Kai breathed into his ear.
“It’s not,” Ren whispered, pulling him closer.
Clothes fell to the floor like petals in the dark. Skin pressed to skin, the low blue glow of studio lights painting their bodies in starlight. Kai’s kisses trailed lower, reverent. Ren moaned softly, shy but surrendering.
They moved like duet partners—tentative at first, then bold. Ren’s fingers traced lines down Kai’s back, drawing music from his throat. They fit like chords resolving. Notes held too long. Vibratos trembling on the edge of something beautiful.
After, they lay tangled in silence, the recorder resting beside them.
Kai pressed his lips to Ren’s temple. “You’ve changed everything.”
Ren turned to face him, fingers brushing Kai’s cheek. “So have you.”
A pause. A breath.
“But this lullaby,” Kai murmured. “It’s more than just a song, isn’t it?”
Ren nodded. “I think… it’s a key. To something bigger.”
Outside, the stars shifted ever so slightly—as if listening.

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