He Tastes Like a Secret

Rin hadn't listened to music since he was nineteen. He worked night shifts at a 24-hour convenience store, insomnia and agoraphobia shrinking his entire world to this box lit by fluorescent lights. Every night at 3 a.m., a homeless man in a dirty hoodie would push in to buy the cheapest liquor, paying with crumpled bills, not saying a word. The routine repeated for two months. Until one night Rin had a full-blown panic attack—3:12 a.m., and the store only had that drunk. The man vaulted over the counter, didn't touch him, and guided his breathing with a voice that didn't belong to a homeless man. Rin came back to life in that voice. From that night, the distance between them shrank in millimeters. Until the body exploded before words—wrapping a wound in the back room, quiet Rin pressed him against the shelf like he'd been lit on fire. But that face belonged to a rock legend who "fell off a bridge and died" three years ago. The person he loved was a corpse. And the person who killed him was looking for him...