4. CHAPTER FOUR
The hallway behind the stage didn’t sound like the concert I’d just been in. It sounded like the ghost of it—muffled, distant bass and the chatter of people.
Security walked a few paces ahead of me, talking among themselves about their plans for later.
Zhari Lumis wants to see you.
That was still rattling around my skull like a pinball that refused to score.
Zhari Lumis wants to see me. Me.
Every time I thought about it, my brain rejected it and sent it back through the loop.
Zhari Lumis wants to see you.
Nope. Still didn’t feel real. Try again, Vada.
Zhari Lumis wants to—
“You okay back there?” one of the guards called over their shoulder.
“Yep,” I said, way too fast. “Great. Totally fine. Just having a casual walk through the backstage area of the coolest pop star ever, who personally asked to meet me for reasons I cannot begin to fathom.”
They exchanged a look but didn’t respond.
“Because here’s the thing,” I continued, because apparently my mouth had decided that if my brain was going to malfunction, it would fill the gap.
“There were thousands of people out there tonight. Humans too. Cute ones. Ones with better outfits and probably way more chill energy. And she picked me. The girl with the smudged mascara who screamed herself hoarse during the bridge. That doesn’t seem weird to you guys? Even a little?”
My mind was in overdrive.
“Listen, we just escort,” the one on the left said. “We don’t ask questions.”
“I suppose,” I muttered. “I question everything. It’s a real problem.”
We passed open doorways that offered quick flashes of a life most people only ever saw through edited clips.
There were glamorous makeup rooms with mirrored walls and benches strewn with brushes and palettes.
A tech station where three people argued over lighting cues, diagrams hovering between them.
Wardrobe areas with chromeskin outfits hanging in neat rows, their colors shifting slowly as if they were breathing.
One of the rehearsal rooms was left open, and when I peered inside, I saw a velan straddling another one, the two of them making out rather aggressively.
My brain catalogued the details automatically, little mental sketches overlaying reality—things I’d kill to get into my notebook later.
Like those jackets everyone was wearing, catching the light like oil on water.
Or the way one crew member’s light threads were twisted up and secured with something that looked suspiciously like a plastic pen.
All of it was so ordinary and so unreal at once.
My heart hadn’t come down from the concert yet. It sat high in my chest, jumpy and beating in double time to a song that had ended fifteen minutes ago. Every step felt slightly unmoored, like the floor was on a different delay than the rest of me.
We stopped in front of a door that looked like all the others—no glowing name, no dramatic signage. If anything, it went out of its way to be plain. A single small panel sat beside it, displaying a sequence of soft blue symbols.
One guard tapped the panel a few times. A few seconds later, the symbols flickered.
“Wait here,” they said. “Don’t touch anything.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll just stand here and have a minor existential crisis about meeting my favorite pop star, hands-free.”
I clicked my tongue and looked around.
The door hissed closed with a soft seal after they disappeared inside.
I exhaled, leaning back against the wall opposite the door. The corridor was quieter there. It felt nice to give my ears a break. Only the faintest tremor from the still-roaring crowd seeped through.
A high, muffled voice came through the door. It was Zhari’s, for sure. But then there was another voice too. Its tone was raised slightly, talking over Zhari’s.
Maybe it was her manager. I couldn’t remember her name, but she always seemed super rigid, judging by her unimpressed looks in interviews.
I couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying because the words were blurred by the door, but there seemed to be some sort of commotion between them. Then the voices went quiet, and I heard a door slam.
My palms were sweaty again. I wiped them on my miniskirt and immediately regretted it when small sweat stains appeared.
Maybe this was a misunderstanding. Maybe they’d meant to summon some VIP—a sponsor’s kid or an executive’s partner—and the system had accidentally flagged me. Maybe a very expensive, very angry person was currently storming toward us from another corridor while I took their place.
I looked down each end of the hall, but no one was there except me.
I would have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t excited to meet my crush. I mean, come on. She was the coolest person in the galaxy to me, and I was about to be in the same room as her.
My palms started sweating again.
As the door opened, I flinched upright so fast that my elbow cracked against the wall behind me.
“Ow!” I blurted, quickly rubbing my arm.
For one surreal second, I thought I’d imagined her before—that the woman onstage had been some larger-than-life projection and this would be a different creature entirely. Smaller. Duller. More ordinary.
She wasn’t.
Zhari stood in the doorway, and every version of her I’d ever seen on a screen became instantly, violently irrelevant. She looked nothing like her interviews and nothing like the concert. She was just a girl with messy hair and a bare face, wearing a fluffy pink robe that fell off one shoulder.
And somehow, she was still the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.
She was glowing, but not with the broadcast-ready kind of glow. It was more like someone had dimmed the house lights and left the stage spots on low.
“Is this her?” the guard asked, nodding toward me.
“Yes,” she said, her voice softer in person. Her eyes found me and stayed there.
Up close, they were still huge, but I could see the exhaustion in them too—the faint darkness beneath the glow and the way her pupils took a second too long to adjust when she looked from the bright corridor to my face.
“Hi, Vada,” she said, sticking out her hand. “I’m Zhari Lumis.”
I stared at her hand. Then at her face. Then back at her hand.
My brain was doing that thing where it tried to load too many tabs at once and just froze. Like dial-up internet.
“Hi, I know who you are,” I blurted out, grabbing her hand to shake it.
“If this is about my unexplained ticket upgrade, I’m not sure what happened there.
Not that I’m not excited. I’m very excited.
This is insane. You’re my biggest crush—I mean, I’ve been listening to your music for years, and you’re just standing there, and you’re real, and this is so cool, and I’m going to stop talking now. ”
I nervously chuckled and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
The corner of her mouth twitched as she laughed.
“It’s not about the tickets. You’re not in any trouble.
” She giggled. “When last-minute tickets go on sale for humans, the system sends out a few random pit upgrades. It’s good publicity.
It shows we welcome off-worlders.” She shrugged. “You got lucky.” She smirked.
So the upgrade was just a promotional thing. I guessed I really had lucked out by buying my ticket at the last minute.
“Okay,” I said. “So if this isn’t about the upgraded ticket, then why did your security pull me back here? It was very scary. I thought I was in trouble.”
The guard shifted, clearly uncertain whether this counted as disrespect. Zhari lifted her hand slightly, and they stilled.
“Can we have a moment?” she asked them. “Alone.”
They hesitated. “Your manager asked—”
“I know what she asked.” Zhari’s tone rose slightly. “I also know you work for me. Wait outside. I’ll call if I need anything.”
The two security guards exchanged a glance, then turned back to her.
“Yes, Ms. Lumis.”
At her word, they withdrew, taking up positions at either end of the corridor. Zhari stepped aside, holding the door open.
“Please, come in.”
I walked past her into the suite, trying very hard not to brush against her. I heard her press a few buttons, and then the door whizzed shut.
Her dressing room was both exactly what I’d imagined and nothing like it. A couch sat against one wall, draped with discarded pieces of her stage outfit—chromeskin panels half-unfastened and a pair of boots that looked like they could break an ankle with one wrong step.
A vanity lined the opposite wall, its mirror ringed with warm lights. The surface was cluttered with small containers, brushes, and tools I couldn’t name. A low table held a tray of dew cakes and the same glittery drink I’d seen earlier. This time, I could see the label. It read Starlust.
“This is incredible,” I whispered, stopping and turning toward Zhari.
“It is, isn’t it?”
“I’ve been listening to your music for years. I’ve drawn your face more times than I can count. You are literally my favorite.” I was rambling. I could hear myself rambling. I couldn’t stop. “This is insane. You’re just standing here. You’re real. Oh my God, you’re real.”
“I’m definitely real.” She smiled and tilted her head.
“Wait, how do you know my name?”
“When your ticket is scanned at the door, your full profile comes up,” she said. “Name, species, planet of origin. It’s for security reasons. There were fewer humans at this show than at previous ones, so it was easy to find you quickly.”
“Okay, yeah, I kind of figured that.” I looked around the room again, taking in all the details I knew I had to draw later. “It’s just so high-frequency in here.”
“Vada,” she interrupted. “Can you come sit?”
She walked past me and sat on the couch.
“It’s temporary,” she said, gesturing around the room. “This arena, this room—wherever I go, they all blur together. They’re all the same.” She tilted her head, studying me. “But you—you’re not. You’re different.”
I swallowed, my brows furrowing. “I’d like to think so.”
She perched on the edge of the couch, pulling her robe tighter, then gestured to the other end. I sat, leaving a small gap between us.