Chapter 18: Fire
The disco ball lamp was off. Morning light, pale and unforgiving, leaked around the edges of Yuna’s blackout curtains, striping the glittering chaos of the living room in muted grey. The usual scent of stale bubble tea had been overpowered by lemon-scented cleaner.
Yuna, dressed in immaculate silk loungewear, was wiping down the coffee table with a ferocity usually reserved for exorcisms. A trash bag sat half-full by her feet, containing the ghost of last night’s fried rice.
She heard the soft click of a door. Not the aggressive thump of Ren’s usual midday emergence, but something deliberate. She turned.
Ren stood in the hallway, already fully dressed in his C4 uniform—a frilled, lavender-and-black dress that seemed to swallow his thin frame. His long hair was neatly brushed, though still loose. He was even wearing the matching ankle socks.
Yuna froze, the cleaning rag dangling from her hand. This was akin to seeing a cat voluntarily take a bath. Alarming.
“Who are you and what have you done with my brother?” she asked, her voice flat.
“Shut up,” Ren muttered, the words lacking their usual venom. He shuffled into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and stared blankly at its contents.
Yuna drifted closer, leaning against the doorway. “Seriously. Did you sleep at all? Are you having a stress-induced fugue state? This is unprecedented. You’re vertical before noon. You’re dressed. You’re… presentable.” A slow, wicked grin spread across her face. “Oh my god. You’re nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” he grumbled, grabbing a milk carton. “I just want to get this stupid practice over with. The sooner we start, the sooner I can come back and grind the new dungeon.”
“Mhm.” Yuna’s eyes gleamed. She crossed her arms. “Is it the dancing? I heard you wheezing like an antique bellows yesterday. Or is it a certain pink-haired lead vocalist who looks at you like you’re a math problem she’s determined to solve?”
Ren nearly dropped the milk. “Tanaka? Don’t be ridiculous. She’s just a pain.”
“A pain who is, by all observational metrics, into you.”
“She’s into Rena,” he corrected, pouring the milk with intense concentration. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Semantics for the charmingly deluded.” Yuna pushed off the doorframe and snatched the milk from him before he could drink straight from the carton, pouring it into a glass. “But fine. Let’s operate on the ‘nervous about practice’ theory. You know what helps with nerves? Being perfectly prepared. Come here.”
With a long-suffering sigh that was pure Ren, he let himself be steered to the rhinestone-encrusted vanity. He sat, slouching immediately, until Yuna slapped his shoulder.
“Posture. You’re a blossoming idol, not a question mark.” She unpinned his hair, letting the silky black cascade fall down his back. She picked up a heavy, silver-backed brush.
For a few minutes, there was only the rhythmic, gentle sound of brushing. It was an old ritual, leftover from childhood. Ren’s shoulders slowly unhunched.
“You did okay last night,” Yuna said, her voice quieter now, focused on untangling a non-existent knot. “After the near-heart attack, I mean. You didn’t panic when Mina made her deduction.”
“What was I supposed to do? Argue?”
“Most people would have. You kept your mouth shut. A minor miracle.” She sectioned his hair with practiced ease. “And the fried rice was a good call. Very domestic. Very sisterly.”
“It was just fried rice.”
“It was a performance,” she corrected, her fingers weaving a quick, elegant braid. “A tiny, delicious slice of normalcy that sold the entire lie. See? You’re a natural at this. You’re just pathologically averse to effort.”
Ren watched her in the mirror. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, the morning light catching the platinum strands of her bob. For all her scheming and sharp edges, this part—the meticulous creation—was where she was most sincere.
“You’re not still mad?” he asked, the question coming out awkwardly.
Yuna met his eyes in the reflection. Her smirk returned. “Oh, I’m furious. We’re on thin ice over a shark tank. But being mad at you is like being mad at the sky for being blue. It’s your inherent state.” She finished the braid, securing it with a lavender ribbon that matched the dress. “There. Now you look like you at least intend to be a functional member of society today. Even if you still move like a marionette with half its strings cut.”
The C4 studio dressing room was a refrigerated capsule of shimmering anxiety. The air hummed with the vibration of the building’s HVAC and the cloying sweetness of five different hairsprays.
Ren—Rena—leaned against a wall of lockers, desperately trying to remember how to breathe like a human and not a beached fish. His lungs were raw. His legs, clad in thin white tights, felt like overstretched rubber bands. The three-hour dance drill had been a systematic dismantling of every sedentary habit he’d cultivated since puberty.
Across the room, Mina chugged electrolyte water, her twintails drooping. Suki sat silently on a plush stool, meticulously polishing the already-spotless keys of a miniature keyboard she carried everywhere. Hikaru Tanaka, however, looked fresh as a terrifyingly cheerful daisy. She was humming, applying a fresh coat of gloss to her lips in the long mirror.
Her pink eyes flicked and caught Ren’s exhausted reflection.
“Rena-chan!” she chirped, not turning around. “You look a little… melted. That last combo really got you, huh?”
“I’m fine,” Ren managed, forcing Rena’s soft, breathy tone. It came out as a wheeze.
“It’s cute,” Hikaru continued, snapping the gloss shut. “The whole ‘struggling to keep up’ thing. Very relatable for the fans.” She finally turned, her smile wide and indecipherable. “But you know, for someone who grew up with a fashion icon sister, your stamina is surprisingly pathetic. Doesn’t Yuna-san make you, like, do jumping jacks for couture?”
The mention of Yuna sent a fresh jolt of tension through him. Hikaru’s gaze was like a searchlight. “We… have different interests,” Rena mumbled, looking away.
At that moment, a faint, old-fashioned ringtone cut through the room—a tinny rendition of a classical piece. It came from Suki’s sequined bag.
All cheer drained from Suki’s petite frame. It was instantaneous, like a switch had been flipped. Her shoulders, usually relaxed, pulled tight. Her head, with its perpetual curtain of bangs, dipped lower.
She dug the phone out, stared at the screen, and her jaw clenched. The pleasant, distant aura she always carried shattered into visible annoyance. She stood up abruptly, the stool legs scraping the floor.
“I have to take this,” she said, her voice devoid of its usual airy tone. It was flat, hard.
She didn’t go to the hallway for privacy. She just turned her back to the room, standing by the coat rack, and answered. “What.” The word wasn’t a question. It was a slab of ice.
The other three went still. Mina paused mid-swig, her eyes wide. Hikaru’s playful smile vanished, replaced by sharp curiosity. Ren just watched, his own exhaustion forgotten.
Suki said almost nothing. She listened, her free hand gripping the strap of her keyboard case so tightly her knuckles went white. The person on the other end spoke in a rapid, urgent murmur they could all faintly hear but not decipher.
After a full minute, Suki interrupted, her voice low but vibrating with a fury they’d never heard. “I said no. Not this time. Handle it yourself.”
She hung up. The click was shockingly loud in the silent room.
For a second, she just stood there, back turned, a small, rigid figure swallowed by an oversized cardigan. Then she took a deep, shuddering breath, smoothed her skirt, and turned around.
The annoyance was gone, folded away behind that familiar, placid blankness. But it had been there. They’d all seen it.
“Sorry about that,” she said, her voice floating back to its usual, pleasant register. It sounded hollow now. “Family stuff. Always so tedious.”
She walked back to her stool, picked up her polishing cloth, and resumed cleaning a key that was already gleaming. The room remained quiet, the earlier hum of casual activity replaced by a thick, unspoken question hanging in the hairspray-scented air.