The heavy steel door of Dressing Room 4 had a habit of sticking at the bottom, dragging against the worn linoleum with a low, metal-on-dust groan that usually signaled the end of the world—or at least the end of a grueling sixteen-hour rehearsal schedule. But tonight, as Vishal pulled it shut behind him, the sound felt entirely severed from reality, like a gate sliding closed between this room and the rest of the bustling, neon-soaked chaos of the National Arena.

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of cooling theatrical fog, expensive oud, and the sharp, metallic tang of overheated lighting rigs.

Across the room, sitting slumped before a massive, three-paneled vanity mirror ringed with blown-bulb warmth, was Tilak.

He hadn't turned on the overheads. The only illumination came from the amber vanity bulbs, casting long, bruised shadows up the planes of his throat and catching the damp curls of dark hair clinging to his temples. He was still wearing his stage costume—a heavily embroidered velvet jacket that looked regal under the house lights, though now the collar was unfastened, revealing the rapid, visible pulse jumping franticly right at the hollow of his neck.

Tilak didn't turn his head as Vishal entered. But in the polished expanse of the center mirror, their eyes collided.

It wasn't a casual glance. It was an impact.

Vishal froze with his hand still resting on the brass door knob, his fingers going entirely cold. In the smoked glass, Tilak’s gaze was locked onto his with an intensity that felt less like a look and more like a physical tether—a steel cable pulled taut across the twelve feet of dim space separating them. Neither of them moved. For a long, suspended heartbeat, the ambient hum of the building—the muffled bass from the soundcheck outside, the clatter of crew equipment in the corridor—dissolved into an absolute, ringing vacuum.

Vishal let out a slow, shallow breath, feeling the air catch awkwardly in his chest. He didn't drop his gaze. He couldn't. Tilak’s eyes were dark, heavy-lidded with exhaustion yet burning with something far more potent, a quiet desperation that had been simmering beneath polite smiles and public handshakes for months.

Slowly, deliberately, Vishal let go of the door. The latch clicked—a tiny sound, yet it echoed like a gavel dropping.

He didn't walk across the room. He drifted, his boots making no sound on the floor, his eyes never once breaking the invisible line connecting them through the mirror. The closer he got, the more the air seemed to thicken, turning heavy and electric, charged with the kind of static that precedes a violent storm.

Tilak finally shifted his weight in the leather chair, the leather groaning softly. He tilted his head back just an inch, exposing more of his throat to the amber glow. His chest rose and fell in a sharp, jagged rhythm, matching the erratic thrum of Vishal’s own pulse against his ribs.

"You're staring," Tilak whispered. His voice was naturally deep, but tonight it sounded raspy, worn down by hours of singing and an unspoken tension that had been eating holes through his composure since the morning soundcheck.

"So are you," Vishal replied. His voice was a low, velvet hum that barely carried across the vanity table, yet it felt like a shout in the quiet room.

Vishal stopped standing just behind Tilak’s left shoulder. In the mirror, their reflections merged. Tilak was looking up, his chin tipped toward the light, his dark eyes wide and glassy with a naked vulnerability he never showed the cameras. Vishal towered over him by half a head, a dark, imposing silhouette framed by the glowing bulbs, looking down with a gaze so fiercely tender it bordered on dangerous.

"They're still clearing the stage out there," Vishal murmured, though his eyes never left Tilak’s reflection. "We could have taken the larger green room down the hall."

"I know," Tilak breathed. A faint, trembling smirk touched the corner of his lips, though his chest hitched on the intake of air. "The lock on this one actually works."

The double meaning hung in the air, sweet and heavy, a silent acknowledgment of the countless hours they had spent hiding in plain sight, trading coded glances across crowded interview stages and brushing shoulders in backstage wings while millions of fans screamed their names. But here, stripped of the styling gel, the flashing cameras, and the performance scripts, there was nowhere left to hide.

Vishal’s gaze dropped from Tilak’s eyes down to the sharp line of his jaw, lingering on the slight parting of his lips. The magnetic pull between them was almost unbearable; it felt as though gravity had tilted sideways, dragging Vishal inexorably toward the seated figure. Every nerve ending in Vishal’s skin felt hyper-sensitized, burning wherever the ambient warmth of Tilak’s body radiated against his own.

"Tilak," Vishal said, his voice dropping an octave, losing its structural integrity. It wasn't a question or a command. It was a plea disguised as a name.

Tilak closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, as if physically buffeted by the sound of it. When he opened them, the amber light in the mirror caught a tear pooling on his lower lashes—not from sadness, but from the sheer, overwhelming weight of the restraint they had practiced for too long.

"Don't," Tilak whispered, his hands gripping the edge of the glass-topped vanity so tightly his knuckles turned white, the skin stretched taut over bone. "Vishal... if you touch me now, I don't think I can pretend anymore."

Vishal didn't step back. Instead, he closed the remaining distance. He leaned down, bracing one hand on the back of Tilak’s chair, bringing his face down until his lips hovered mere centimeters from the shell of Tilak’s ear. He could smell the faint trace of sandalwood and sweat on Tilak’s skin—a scent he had memorized in the dark corners of his mind weeks ago.

"Who's pretending?" Vishal murmured against the sensitive skin just below Tilak’s earlobe.

Tilak’s breath hitched violently, a sharp, ragged sound that tore right out of his throat. His head tilted further back, blindly seeking the warmth of Vishal’s mouth, his eyes fluttering shut as a shiver racked his entire frame. The proximity was intoxicating, a slow-acting poison that made their heads swim. They didn't need to touch to feel the scald of skin against skin; the space between them was charged with an intensity so fierce it felt like standing too close to an open flame.

"They're waiting for us at the after-party," Tilak whispered, though his words were ruined by the way his hands rose, trembling slightly, to grip the fabric of Vishal’s sleeves, anchoring himself to the only real thing in a world made of smoke and mirrors.

"Let them wait," Vishal answered, his voice dropping to a rough rasp right against Tilak’s temple. He didn't kiss him—not yet. He wanted to draw out the agony of the anticipation, to savor the exquisite, delicious torture of wanting what was already entirely his.

In the mirror, their eyes met one last time, locked in a silent, eternal pact as the amber bulbs hummed softly in the dark, watching the two brightest stars in the country quietly burn out for anyone else.