The message buzzed on your phone just past twilight

“He locked himself in, Said he can’t perform tonight, he’s not okay”

It was from Glimm, Glisten’s assistant, your chest tightened, Glisten your radian. Starboy was the white gold and your body inspiring your rock with the fun known galaxy-wide for his voice, his poses and his unapologetic queerness, this 40 stage twirls and glowing smirks…but you knew beneath all that charisma and chrome was someone aching to be understood so you rushed to his penthouse suite above the Cloudset Arena, once you entered by using the spare house key you saw the living room and everything else was quiet but you heard noise coming from his chambers so when you open the door, the air was heavy with perfume and scattered feathers from last night costume change, glitter streaked the carpet my fallen stardust, and there, half curled on his plush pink chaise, a cascade of white leg warmers with pink glitter spots draped down, his poofy shirt wrinkled, and untucked, pink bows untied…was Glisten

His mirror head tilted down, pink blushed, glowing faintly on his cheeks, though it looked…dimmer. Not the sparkle he wore for the cameras. his golden frame gleam in it the dim light, muscular yet trembling tense. He didn’t look up as you walked towards him.

“I thought you’d be at rehearsal” you said gently “I can’t sing tonight” he whispered, his voice, vibrating softly through his chest, like a cracked chime “they love my reflection and perfection, not…me, not the cracked parts” you knelt in front of him, resting a hand on his knee, “but I do, I love what they don’t seee the mirror and the man behind it” with a long pause then slowly, he titled up. In his mirrored face, you saw my own messy haired worried but steady behind my reflection along with his worried and tried eyes, the softness shimmer bloom like warmth behind the glass, a flicker of something real he leaned forward, golden shoulder, shaking when you caught him in time. “You’re not alone”, you murmured into the collar of the rumpled Whig shirt. “Let’s pick up the pieces together” which he held you tight maybe the show wouldn’t happen tonight maybe the world could wait but you wouldn’t