The dome rose against the winter sky like a second moon.
City lights surrounded it, bleeding into the cold air, painting everything gold and white and electric blue. Cars pulled up in long lines, doors swinging open, people pouring out in waves—winter jackets, scarves, hats pulled low against the cold, breath rising in small clouds that disappeared into the night.
Families. Couples. Children gripping glow sticks in both fists, already waving them, already screaming.
Vendors on the sidewalks. Security guards with earpieces scanning the crowd. Drones hovering overhead, their red lights blinking slowly against the dark sky. Billboards rotating on every corner—her face on all of them. Brown hair. Green eyes. That smile.
*STAR FALL — ONE NIGHT ONLY*
The crowd pushed toward the entrance, a single organism moving toward warmth and light and noise.
---
Inside, the dome swallowed everything.
Thousands of bodies packed together, glow sticks turning the darkness into a sea of color—pink, blue, green, gold—all of them moving, all of them waiting, all of them wanting the same thing.
The stage sat in darkness at the center.
Whispers rippled through the crowd.
Then a voice.
Booming. Theatrical.
"Ladies and gentlemen—"
The crowd erupted before the sentence finished.
"—I give you Star Fall."
Five girls descended from above on platforms of light, dressed in black and gold, the stage exploding beneath them—cameras, lasers, music hitting the walls like a physical force.
The screaming was immediate.
Violent.
Beautiful.
Glow sticks waved like soldiers charging a battlefield, thousands of them moving in unison, the crowd surging forward as the music crashed through the dome.
And there she was.
Petite. Soft skin like warm light. Silky brown hair catching the stage beams. Hazel-green eyes alive and glittering and open wide.
Eun Byol.
The crowd screamed her name like a prayer.
Her voice cut through everything—melody, power, command, glory—filling the dome from floor to ceiling, reaching into every corner, every chest, every held breath.
She moved across the stage like she was born on it.
Like it was the only place she'd ever existed.
Like this was all she was.
---
Backstage, behind the curtains and the cables and the moving bodies of staff, a tall man stood in the shadows.
Long red scarf.
Short black hair.
Rohim skin.
He stood perfectly still, watching the lights, watching the show, one hand in his jacket pocket, his face half-consumed by darkness.
His phone vibrated.
He reached in without looking, pulled it out, glanced at the screen.
Stepped back from the curtain.
Answered.
He moved toward the elevator, people parting around him without being asked, making space the way they always did for men like him.
"You don't understand." His voice was smooth. Controlled. Not loud. "I paid you to do a specific job. I spent a considerable amount of money. So stop giving me excuses—" a pause, "—and do your job."
He ended the call.
Slid the phone back into his jacket.
The elevator doors opened.
He stepped inside.
The doors closed.
---
Darkness.
The music faded.
The screaming faded.
The lights faded.
Just the hum of the elevator moving upward through the dark shaft, the faint mechanical groan of cables, the feeling of leaving one world behind without arriving anywhere yet.
His reflection stared back from the steel walls.
Distorted.
Stretched.
The red scarf looked black in here.
Everything looked black in here.
The elevator hummed.
Rose.
Then the doors opened.
---
White and gold and stone.
Everything immaculate.
Quiet.
A young receptionist behind a gray stone desk, small green plants arranged carefully beside her, looked up as he stepped off.
She didn't wait for him to ask.
"He's been waiting. You may enter."
He paused before the door.
Dark red wood.
Gold handle.
He waited a moment longer than necessary.
Then opened it.
---
Blue and white sky filled the window like a painting.
The desk was buried.
Papers everywhere. Folders stacked three high. Phones lined up along the edge. A half-drunk cup of coffee gone cold, pushed to the corner to make room for more papers.
Eun Jihan stood behind it.
Short. Heavy. Dark hair. Skin worn at the edges like something handled too many times.
He wasn't sitting.
Couldn't sit.
He moved from one stack to the next—picking up, scanning, signing, setting down, picking up another—phone pressed between his ear and shoulder, speaking quietly to someone on the other end while his hands moved through the papers without stopping.
He didn't look up when Park Han-Soo entered.
"Is there any news about my daughter?"
Park Han-Soo closed the door behind him.
"No sir. But we are using every resource at our disposal. We need more time. We need to let the professionals handle this."
Eun Jihan set down a folder.
Picked up his phone.
Dialed.
Waited.
"Get me the legal team."
He ended the call before the answer came.
Reached for another folder.
"The other girls?"
"Fine sir. Shaken but fine."
"The media? Our image?"
Park Han-Soo hesitated.
Just barely.
"Stable sir. The incident pushed the album to platinum. Highest sales figures we've seen."
Eun Jihan's hand slowed over a document.
Just for a moment.
Then kept moving.
He signed something without reading it.
Moved to the next page.
The desk was covered in work.
All of it urgent.
All of it important.
None of it her.
Park Han-Soo stood near the door.
Watching a man keep himself deliberately, aggressively, desperately busy.
"Sir." His voice was careful. "You could go home. Rest. I can manage everything here. You're going through—"
"No." The word came soft. Final. "Sitting at home—everything there reminds me of her. Of what she could be going through right now. I cannot sit." A pause. "I will not sit. Do you understand?"
"Yes sir."
The city moved below the window.
Indifferent.
Endless.
Eun Jihan's hands slowed again.
He was looking at the papers but not reading them.
His eyes had gone somewhere else entirely.
Long black hair.
White sheets.
Hazel-green eyes.
A single tear ran down his cheek.
He didn't wipe it.
Didn't acknowledge it.
"What would you do if you were here?"
The question went nowhere.
To the window.
To the city.
To no one.
"It should have been me."
His voice barely made sound.
He straightened.
Picked up another folder.
"Keep me in the loop. Anything new. Anything at all." He didn't look up. "You may go. I have much work to do."
Park Han-Soo gave a small nod.
"Yes sir."
He turned.
Opened the door.
Closed it quietly behind him.
Eun Jihan stood alone.
Papers everywhere.
Phones lined up.
Work stacked high.
The city glittering below like it always had.
Like nothing had changed.
Like nothing was missing.
He reached for another folder.
Opened it.
Stared at the page.
Read nothing.