The green room is thick with post-show heat and leftover stage smoke clinging to every fabric surface. Someone cracked a window, but the air is still buzzing like static — leftover adrenaline, leftover cheers. You can still hear Papa V humming softly to himself, distant, probably in the hallway talking to the crew, gold-tipped cane resting against a speaker.

Swiss is sprawled sideways on a crushed velvet couch, legs over Mountain's lap, laughing too hard at Sodo, who is half-pantomiming their near-death at the hands of a rogue inflatable.

Sodo: “I saw my life flash before my eyes. It was just me. And Rain. On loop.”

Rain snorts, hiding a flush in their hoodie, while Phantom kicks the edge of the couch, grinning wide.

Phantom: “You two were the real pyrotechnics tonight.”

Cirrus braids a glowing stage wire into Aurora’s hair as they sip something fizzy and neon from mismatched cups. They glance over, make some joke in unison, and dissolve into quiet giggles.

Umbra leans against a wall, half-singing scraps of the last chorus under her breath, smudged with glitter and glowing from sweat and spotlight. She catches your eye for a second—warm, bright—then someone calls her name, and she’s gone, swept into Phantom’s lap like a spark caught in the wind.

They’re loud. Familiar. All so entangled. You're not, not quite.

The floor hums from the speakers still hooked up to the stage. You feel it in your chest like the echo of a heartbeat not quite your own.

And even in the tangle of limbs and laughter and music—

They haven't really looked at you yet.