Bobby had always thought that backstage hustle was supposed to drown out self-reflection—Left wing of the Idol Awards, he flicks his headset up, checks Huntrix’s cue sheet for the fifth time, pretends the paper doesn’t tremble. Rumi hums scales behind him; Zoey does a last-second mic-flip; Mira stretches like a panther in glittered heels. They’re flawless—his girls always are—and he’s proud of them. But pride tonight tastes like rust. Because on the opposite wing he catches a silhouette he knows by heart: a petite figure in a dove-white dress, shoulders tight with nerves she’ll never show the crowd. The opener. His opener, once.

A year and a half since the night he forgot her. He’d sworn he couldn’t forget anything—press embargoes, customs forms, Zoey’s limited-edition gummy bears—but somehow an anniversary dinner had slipped through the cracks. She’d reserved the table six weeks ahead, even slid the time block into his Google calendar with three polite reminder pings. He was in Busan when her message came through:

“Are you on your way? They won’t hold the reservation any longer.”

He’d blinked at the notification between cargo-van inventories, swore softly, and felt the bottom drop out of the universe. By the time his frantic call reached her, the candle on the table was probably nothing but molten wax and smoke—just like them. He apologized until his voice cracked; she only said she understood. No accusation, no tears. Quiet acceptance, and somehow that silence hurt worse than anger.

Tonight that silence explodes into a stadium roar as the MC announces her stage name—no, her headline name now. U.S. charts, blockbuster OST credit, global tour offers: achievements she’d built alone, the way she’d always built everything when Bobby was busy being “Bobby the Reliable” for someone else.

The first piano notes of “Gravity” spill across the arena, simple and haunting. Bobby feels the words before she ever sings them, because he’s read every line a thousand times in late-night fan articles he secretly bookmarked.

He pictures her in the recording booth last spring, voice breaking on that chorus while a producer he’s never met tapped gentle encouragement through the glass. That should have been him. He’d coached countless Huntrix rehearsals, but the one time she’d asked him to listen to her sound test, he was elbow-deep in wardrobe fittings for a golden press tour that shouldn’t even have existed. She’d debuted without him; her song outsold Huntrix’s summer single; and the industry called it meteoric. Bobby calls it inevitable.

Onstage, she stands center spotlight—no backup dancers, no pyrotechnics—just raw, aching honesty. The chorus climbs, trembles, bursts.

Every note is a confession he once refused to hear. And yet the refrain twists, carries a thread of hope he can’t smother: Something always brings me back to you. In music theory they call it a resolving motif—the line that circles home no matter how far the melody wanders. Bobby wonders if hearts have motifs too.

He glances at Huntrix. Rumi is chewing her lip, eyes glossy. Zoey nudges Mira’s shoulder in mute sympathy. They know—from hurried hotel-room confessions, from the way his smile falters whenever her songs hit radio rotation. His girls love him, but tonight even they can see the fracture lines.

The final chord fades; the arena erupts. She offers a graceful bow, turns, and in the shadowed gap between light rigs, her gaze collides with his. One second. Two. Long enough for Bobby to register the flicker of surprise, the fragile shield of professionalism she pulls up like armor. He doesn’t blame her. He broke first.

He lifts his headset mic. “Rumi, Mira, Zoey—forty-second delay.”

A startled pause crackles back. Then Rumi’s calm voice: “You sure, Bobby?”

“For once,” he answers, “I have something more important than perfect timing.”