“—and then I just… blank. Totally blank. The entire third act. All of it. Gone.” Hana’s voice was a ragged thing, hitched and thin, the words tripping over each other as if in a desperate race to escape his throat. His chest felt like a fist had squeezed it, hard, twisting until the air wouldn’t go down, then wouldn’t come back up. The walls of the dressing room, usually just a temporary box for quick changes and last-minute mirror checks, had started to press in, the faint smell of old greasepaint and damp fabric suddenly overwhelming, suffocating. He gripped the edge of the makeup table, the chipped laminate digging into his palms, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough.
His vision, already blurry from the frantic tears that hadn’t quite spilled, sharpened on the tiny imperfections in the peeling paint on the wall. A microscopic crack, spider-webbing out from a loose nail. It felt like his own mind, fractured and about to shatter. The rustle of his costume, the heavy wool of the period jacket, felt like a shroud. He tried to take a deep breath, really tried, but it caught in his throat, a dry rasp that sounded alien. A frantic, pathetic noise. He squeezed his eyes shut, hard, pressing the heels of his hands against them until bright, swirling pinpricks of light exploded behind his eyelids. He wanted to disappear. Just evaporate right there, before the curtain went up, before he stepped out and made a spectacular, public fool of himself.
Then a sharp, precise click. The sound of a mic headset being pulled off, followed by the dull *thud* as it landed softly on the worn carpet. Hana flinched, eyes still squeezed shut, but a new presence had entered the suffocating space. He hadn't heard Jin come in, hadn't registered anything beyond the frantic drumbeat of his own blood in his ears. Jin, his manager, usually an extension of the technical booth, a voice in his ear, a distant, calm presence, was suddenly *here*. Too close. Hana felt the air shift, a subtle ripple in the oppressive heat of his panic, and instinct made him want to burrow deeper into the corner, to make himself smaller, invisible.
“Hana.” Jin’s voice was low, flat, a dull thrum against the ringing in Hana’s ears. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A command. Hana finally dared to open his eyes, just a slit. Jin stood a few feet away, hands on his hips, the headset lying at his feet like a discarded thought. His face, usually an unreadable mask of professional detachment, was… different. Not angry, not even concerned, not exactly. More like a perfectly honed knife, assessing. He was wearing his usual backstage uniform: dark trousers, a crisp, slightly rumpled white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The autumn chill from the slightly ajar window, where a single, desiccated brown leaf clung stubbornly to the sill, seemed to intensify around Jin, a strange counterpoint to the heat rising from Hana’s skin.
“I can’t do this,” Hana croaked, the words barely audible. His jaw felt locked. “I’ll forget. The lines. Everything. They’ll see it. Everyone will see it.” His gaze darted to the ornate, gold-trimmed mirror that filled one wall, a mocking reflection of his own wide, desperate eyes, his pale face blotchy and glistening. He hated seeing himself like this. Hated that Jin was seeing him like this. It was humiliating. Every single carefully constructed layer of confidence, of practiced stage persona, stripped away to reveal this quivering, raw thing underneath. He clenched his fists, knuckles white, fingernails digging into his palms. It hurt, a small, welcome distraction from the vast, aching terror.
Jin took a slow, deliberate step closer. His eyes, dark and impossibly steady, fixed on Hana’s. Hana wanted to look away, to break the contact, but he couldn’t. It felt like he was caught in a tractor beam, pulled relentlessly forward into the unwavering stillness of Jin’s gaze. “You will do it,” Jin said, his voice dropping another notch, becoming almost a murmur, yet it vibrated with an authority Hana had rarely heard directed at him so directly. “You’ve done it a hundred times in rehearsal. You’ll do it a hundred more tonight.”
“No, I won’t. This is… this is different. It’s *the* night, Jin. My shot. And I’m going to ruin it. I know it. I can feel it.” Hana started to shake his head, a small, involuntary tremor that began in his neck and traveled down his spine. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to contain the tremors, to hold himself together, but his hands felt slick with cold sweat. He was a mess. A pathetic, snot-nosed mess. He’d worked for years for this, scrapped and clawed, learned every nuance, every inflection, and now, at the precipice, he was collapsing.
“Stop that.” Jin’s voice was sharper this time, cutting through the self-pitying haze. He took another step, closing the distance between them until he was almost within arm’s reach. “You’re spiraling. Look at me, Hana.” He reached out, not to touch, but to cup a hand just above Hana’s shoulder, a firm, non-negotiable boundary. The air around Hana crackled, a sudden, intense awareness of the heat radiating from Jin’s palm. Hana’s breath hitched again. He instinctively leaned away, but Jin didn’t let him. His presence was like a wall, unyielding.
“I just need… to be alone,” Hana gasped, trying to push past the hand that wasn’t quite touching him, but which felt more solid than any physical barrier. “I need to just… fix this.” He wanted to run, but his legs felt like jelly, rooted to the spot. The backstage crew would be calling them to positions soon. Any minute now. The thought sent another jolt of panic through him, a white-hot spear twisting in his gut.
“Fix what? Yourself into a puddle on the floor?” Jin’s tone was dry, almost dismissive, but his eyes never left Hana’s. “That’s not fixing it. That’s abandoning it. This isn’t a dress rehearsal for collapse, Hana. This is the show. Now, listen to me.” He lowered his hand from Hana’s shoulder, but instead of retreating, he took Hana’s right hand, which was still clenched against the table, and gently, but firmly, uncurled his fingers. Hana’s hand was cold, clammy, trembling uncontrollably. Jin’s fingers, surprisingly warm and strong, wrapped around his.
The contact was like a shock, a sudden grounding force that pulled Hana violently from the precipice of his internal chaos. He stared at their joined hands, his own pale and shaking within Jin’s steady grip. Jin’s thumb rubbed a slow, deliberate circle on the back of Hana’s hand. Hana felt a strange, involuntary gasp escape him, not from fear, but from the sudden, intense sensation. His gaze flickered up to Jin’s face, searching. What was this? Jin never… Jin was always so hands-off, so professional, so perfectly *managed*.
“Breathe with me,” Jin instructed, his voice a low hum against the frantic pounding of Hana’s heart. He didn’t release Hana’s hand, instead, he held it more firmly, almost pinning it against the cool laminate of the table. He brought his other hand up, taking Hana’s left hand, gently prying it open from its clenched fist, linking their fingers. Hana’s hands felt utterly trapped, but not in a menacing way. More like… anchored. Held. His tremors, which had been rattling through him like a broken machine, began to subside, minute by minute, under the unwavering pressure of Jin’s grip.
Jin took a slow, deep breath, his chest visibly expanding, holding it for a beat, then letting it out with a soft, controlled hiss. Hana watched him, mesmerized by the simple, deliberate act. He found himself mimicking the motion, a ragged, uneven intake of air, followed by a shaky exhale. It wasn’t perfect. Not even close. But it was *air*. More air than he’d taken in for what felt like hours.
“Again,” Jin commanded, his eyes still locked on Hana’s, a silent anchor in the storm of his mind. “In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Focus on the feeling of your chest expanding. Not the lines. Not the audience. Just this breath. Now.” He repeated the motion, his own breathing deep and even, a counterpoint to Hana’s shallow gasps. Hana tried, really tried, to match him. He felt the cold air scrape at his throat, the faint smell of damp wood and something metallic, like burnt copper, that often lingered backstage, filling his lungs. It wasn’t the smell of freedom, but it was the smell of *now*. Of the present. And that was enough.
“I… I can’t…” Hana stammered, the words dissolving into another shudder. He squeezed his eyes shut again, fighting the urge to tear his hands away, to hide. The shame of his weakness was a fresh wave, threatening to drown him again. He could hear the faint murmur of the audience in the distance, a low hum of anticipation that felt like a predator’s growl.
“You can,” Jin’s voice cut in, sharp and unyielding. “And you will. Because you have to. Because you worked your ass off for this. Now, look at me.” Hana opened his eyes, reluctantly. Jin’s gaze was intense, unwavering. His thumb continued its slow, steady circle on the back of Hana’s hand, a constant, physical reminder of presence. “You think I don’t know this feeling?” Jin asked, his voice unexpectedly quiet, yet it resonated with a new, raw edge. Hana blinked, surprised. Jin? Of course Jin knew. Jin knew everything, processed everything, analyzed everything. But *this* feeling? This utter, debilitating terror?
“You… you always look so… calm,” Hana whispered, the words a thin thread. Jin, unflappable. Jin, who could fix any technical glitch, smooth over any crisis with a quiet word or a precise adjustment. Jin, who saw the world in logical sequences and solvable problems.
A ghost of a smile, grim and humorless, touched Jin’s lips. “That’s the act, isn’t it?” he said, his eyes still holding Hana’s. “The one you’re so good at, usually. The one I used to be good at, too.” He paused, and for the first time, Hana saw a flicker of something deeply personal in Jin’s gaze, something that wasn't just detached assessment. It was vulnerability, startling and profound. “This isn’t my first time backstage, Hana,” Jin continued, his voice lower still, almost a confession. “Not in this capacity. I used to be out there.” He gestured vaguely with his head towards the unseen stage, a silent, almost imperceptible movement. “Years ago. Bigger stage. Bigger role.”
Hana’s breath hitched again, but this time not from panic. From shock. Jin? An actor? The revelation hit him with the force of a physical blow. Jin, who knew every single detail of lighting, sound, staging, timing, but who never, ever spoke of himself beyond the immediate, pragmatic. Jin, who seemed born to the shadows, managing the spotlight, never seeking it.
“What… what happened?” Hana finally managed, his voice barely a whisper. The question felt impossibly intimate, crossing a boundary he hadn’t even realized existed between them. The tremors in his hands had almost completely stopped, replaced by a strange, tingling warmth radiating from Jin’s grip.
Jin’s eyes closed for a fleeting second, a blink that stretched into a moment, a pause in the relentless march of time. When they opened, they were even darker, heavier. “I froze,” he said, the words stark, unadorned. “Center stage. Just like you think you’re going to. Spotlight on me, the lines just… gone. Every single one. I stood there. For what felt like an eternity. The audience… they coughed. Then they whispered. Then someone laughed.” He pulled in a deep, shuddering breath, a mirror of Hana’s earlier struggle. “I walked off. In the middle of the show. Never went back on.”
The silence that followed was immense, heavy with the weight of Jin’s admission. Hana stared at him, speechless. He saw not a manager, not an unflappable technician, but a ghost. A ghost of a performer, standing exposed, vulnerable, reliving a moment that had clearly broken something fundamental inside him. The way Jin spoke, the utter lack of self-pity, the clinical precision of the memory, made it even more devastating. It wasn’t a plea for sympathy. It was a statement of fact, a transfer of brutal, lived experience.
“It cost me everything, Hana,” Jin continued, his grip tightening imperceptibly on Hana’s hands. “That’s why I’m here. Backstage. Because the stage… it took me down. But it doesn’t have to take you.” His gaze, still fixed on Hana, held an unspoken challenge, a fierce, protective fire that made Hana’s own fear seem childish, small. Jin wasn't offering comfort. He was offering a lifeline, one he'd pulled from the wreckage of his own fall.
Hana felt a strange, impossible shift inside him. The raw, desperate terror hadn’t completely vanished, but it had receded, replaced by a searing ache of recognition, a profound, gut-wrenching understanding. Jin hadn't just *seen* his panic. Jin *knew* it. Had lived it. Had survived it, albeit in a different form. And in that shared, devastating knowledge, Hana felt an unexpected, almost overwhelming warmth bloom in his chest, chasing away the cold, clammy fear.
He looked at Jin’s hands, still holding his own, then up to Jin’s face. The harsh backstage lights picked out the fine lines around Jin’s eyes, the slight shadow of exhaustion beneath them, details Hana had never really noticed before. Jin wasn’t just a manager, a detached professional. He was… something else. Something raw, something intensely human. And he was here. For Hana. Not just as a job, not just as a duty, but as a person who understood, deep in his bones, the crushing weight of public failure. He was the barrier between Hana and that same crushing weight. He was the anchor. The steady force. The reason Hana hadn't completely crumbled.
“So,” Jin said, a faint, almost imperceptible smile finally touching his lips, a genuine one this time, soft at the edges. “Breathe. Again.” He took another deep, measured breath, and Hana, without thinking, inhaled with him, the air filling his lungs, a little less ragged this time, a little more controlled. He felt a tremor, not of fear, but of… something else. Something profound and fragile, a connection forged in the crucible of his own collapse, mirrored in Jin’s quiet strength. The panic wasn't gone, not entirely. It lingered, a low thrum beneath his skin, but it was distant now, held at bay by the unwavering presence of the man in front of him.
A knock on the dressing room door, sharp and insistent. “Five minutes, Hana! Places!” The stage manager’s voice, muffled but clear, jolted Hana. He stiffened, the breath catching in his throat again, but this time, it wasn’t a full-blown panic. It was just… nerves. Manageable. Because Jin was still here. Still holding his hands. Still looking at him, that intense, unwavering gaze.
Jin released Hana’s hands, the sudden absence of warmth leaving a surprising chill. He stepped back, a single movement, resuming his professional distance. But something had fundamentally shifted. The space between them, once purely transactional, was now charged, humming with an unspoken understanding. Hana felt it, keenly. He looked at Jin, really looked at him, and for the first time, he didn't just see his manager. He saw the person who had pulled him back from the edge, the one who made him believe, even for a fleeting second, that he *could* be visible, that he *deserved* to be seen, because Jin himself had been willing to show him his own scars. Jin met his gaze, a quiet challenge, a silent promise. And then, Jin turned, picked up his headset, and slipped it on, his face once again settling into its calm, detached mask. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice flat, professional, but his eyes, for just a fraction of a second longer, held something that was entirely for Hana.