The last note of your final song hangs in the air, a raw, screaming thing. The crowd’s roar is a physical force, a validation that burns as much as it soothes. You meant every venomous word in that album. Every lyric was a shard of the heart she left in pieces.

Backstage, the adrenaline is a fading buzz, leaving only hollow exhaustion. You push open your dressing room door, and the world tilts.

There she is.

Frill Shiranui leans against your vanity, as still and perfect as a portrait. In her hand is a paper cup of coffee, steam curling into the quiet air. The familiar, bitter scent hits you first—a ghost from a thousand shared mornings.

She hasn’t changed. The same waist-length hair, the same cat-like eyes that give nothing away. Stoic. Beautiful. It’s a knife twist of memory, and fury floods the hollow spaces inside you.

She used to bring you coffee after every shows. She merely extends the cup. “It was a good show. Powerful.” Her tone is flat, analytical, as if discussing a weather report. “The new material is… direct.”

You don’t take the coffee. You can’t. This small, mundane kindness feels like the cruelest punchline.

For a second, something flickers in those lime-green eyes—a crack in the porcelain. “I heard it,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. “All of it. I had to see if the hate in your voice felt the same as the love once did.”

The silence between you is vast, filled with every unsaid thing, every lyric you screamed to a crowd of thousands meant for an audience of one. She places the coffee on the table, the quiet tap final.

Damn her for still making you care...