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The statement landed quietly, exactly as Max intended.
It appeared alongside the first spring editorial images—lean silhouettes caught between structure and abrasion, fabric that looked lived-in without ever feeling careless. A bridge, not a departure. New York still present in the cut, but grunge threaded back through the seams like memory.
Claire read it on her phone between fittings, smiling to herself.
Max was already moving again.
The timing couldn’t have been more exact—and more impossible.
Lou felt it first.
The calendar didn’t argue anymore; it just filled. Claire’s schedule tightened into colour blocks that barely left breathing room. Editorial shoots overlapped with soundtrack commitments. Film rehearsals bled into wardrobe calls for the sequel. Soundstages booked, released, then rebooked somewhere else entirely.
And in the middle of it all, Lou made the call she’d been circling for weeks.
She handed Neon Pulse over.
Not abandoned—placed.
The new manager was steady, experienced, unflashy. Someone whose strength wasn’t reinvention, but containment. Someone who could guide them through controversy without amplifying it, who understood that sometimes the job wasn’t growth—it was survival with dignity.
The girls took it better than Lou feared.
Still, there was a moment.
A small, unspoken disappointment that Max wouldn’t be staying on creatively with them—that the chapter they’d imagined had already closed. Lou saw it, acknowledged it, didn’t dress it up.
“This gets you through,” she told them honestly. “And sometimes that’s the bravest move.”
They nodded. Not fully convinced, but trusting her enough to try.
Trust, Lou knew, was something you had to protect when everything else felt negotiable.
Max, meanwhile, was ankle-deep in mud.
Literally.
The spring shoot had gone ahead despite the weather’s objections. Long grasses, off-beaten back roads, cold air sharp enough to make breath visible. Every frame screamed rebirth while everyone behind the camera shivered.
Claire arrived late, bundled up, hair still damp from rehearsal. The van—small, dented, stubborn—had gotten bogged just off the road.
“We’re calling it ‘authentic texture,’” someone joked as they pushed.
Max laughed, jacket half-unbuttoned, boots already ruined. “This is what grunge is actually about. Cold. Mud. Questionable decisions.”
They shot anyway.
Between takes, Claire rubbed her hands together for warmth, grinning as the wind whipped through fabric that was definitely not designed for this temperature.
“Spring,” she said, deadpan.
“Conceptually,” Max replied.
They worked fast. Shot smarter. Laughed when a heel sank into the ground and had to be rescued. Someone slipped. Someone caught it on camera and immediately promised not to post it.
The van, eventually freed, became a running joke—parked carefully, revered like a temperamental animal.
Between locations, Claire checked messages: Lou coordinating, Eli flagging a rehearsal shift, a note about soundtrack edits coming through later than planned.
It was a lot.
But it was good.
At one point, Max glanced at her and said, “You’re handling this better than most people would.”
Claire shrugged. “I think I just stopped trying to do it all myself.”
That, Max thought, was the difference.
By the time they wrapped, the light was fading and everyone smelled like wet grass and effort.
Spring, captured in the cold.
Grunge, refined but not domesticated.
Back in the van, heater blasting, Claire laughed as someone passed around takeaway coffee like contraband.
“Add this to the list of things I never expected,” she said. “Mud. Couture. A schedule that makes no sense.”
Max smiled, already thinking ahead to the next shoot, the next bridge to cross.
Outside, the road curved away from the field, back toward studios and deadlines and warm interiors.
Inside, for a moment, it was just people doing work they cared about—laughing through it, carrying it forward.
And somehow, despite the cold and the chaos, it all felt like it was moving exactly where it needed to go.
Schedules didn’t ask permission.
They just happened.
Somewhere between callbacks and call sheets, Evan and Claire became a thing without ever announcing it. No grand decision. No line crossed with ceremony. Just a slow accumulation of nights that ended the same way and mornings that started with borrowed clothes and coffee made too strong.
Claire always stayed at Evan’s.
It wasn’t a rule. It just… worked out that way.
Her place was closer to studios; his was closer to quiet. And after long days of being visible, quiet won every time.
They learned the choreography of it quickly.
Drapes half-closed so the city didn’t stare back. Shoes kicked off wherever they landed. Bags dropped and immediately forgotten. Sometimes they arrived talking over each other, laughing about nothing. Other nights they barely spoke at all, the relief of being off-duty doing the work for them.
Time together came in odd shapes.
Twenty minutes before a late rehearsal.
An hour stolen between edit reviews.
A cancelled meeting that turned into an accidental lunch.
Evan got very good at timing dinner to the exact window Claire might appear. Claire got very good at falling asleep mid-sentence and waking up apologetic.
“Sorry,” she’d mumble. “I was listening.”
“I know,” Evan would say. “You just fell asleep doing it.”
They missed things constantly.
He left for soundcheck while she was still in the shower.
She came home to notes instead of people.
Text messages that read five minutes and meant forty-five.
Once, they sat on opposite sides of the same city for an entire afternoon, both convinced the other was too busy to ask.
They laughed about it later. Mostly.
The closer it crept toward Christmas, the stranger the timing became. The industry always did this—sped up just to exhaust itself, then pretended the slowdown was intentional.
Weather got colder. Days got shorter. Schedules filled with the promise of a break no one quite believed in yet.
“I just want,” Claire said one night, curled into the couch, jacket still on, “a week where no one asks me to be anywhere.”
Evan smiled. “I want a week where I know what day it is.”
They looked at each other, equally tired, equally amused.
“Do you think we’ll actually get it?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “If we behave.”
She snorted. “We won’t.”
But there was something steady underneath the joke.
A sense that this—this—was working. Not because it was easy, but because it was chosen over and over again in the small gaps where nothing else fit.
They didn’t need big gestures.
They didn’t need perfect timing.
They had drapes pulled back just enough to let light in. Shared keys. Toothbrushes that stayed. Calendars that overlapped badly but honestly.
And somewhere ahead—past the chaos, past the last commitments of the year—was the idea of stopping.
Not forever.
Just long enough.
For now, they kept finding each other in the cracks.
And somehow, that felt like more than enough.
Claire didn’t know it had happened until she felt the air change.
It was small at first. A pause that lingered too long when she walked into rehearsal. A look exchanged that didn’t quite include her. Nothing anyone could point to. Nothing anyone would apologise for.
The group was doing well. Five members. Solid. No desperation for features. No need to borrow heat. That, she’d thought, was the safest place to be.
She was wrong about safety.
Lou had been busy. Everyone had. Between soundstage rehearsals for the sequel and the gaps that opened unexpectedly when schedules refused to line up, there were pockets of time no one quite owned. Lou used one of those pockets the way she always had—strategically, helpfully.
She set up a collaboration.
Not for Lucid.
For Neon Pulse.
It made sense on paper. The girls needed a lift, especially in Japan. The sound suited them. The timing worked. Apex Prism backed it quietly. And Strike—present on-site anyway, between takes, with downtime and momentum to spare—was an obvious fit.
It wasn’t a betrayal. Not yet.
What Lou didn’t clock was the shift beneath her feet: Neon Pulse wasn’t hers anymore. Not in the way that mattered. The new manager nodded, agreed, smiled—and then handled things their way.
Information loosened.
Someone mentioned a sighting, casually.
Someone else filled in a detail.
Nothing malicious. Just… shared.
Strike noticed the Porsche first.
A 911, clean, unmistakable, pulling up near the edge of the soundstage lot where the vans were parked. Claire’s trailer door opened. She stepped out quickly, laughing at something said too softly to hear. Evan leaned across to open the passenger door.
Strike didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t need to.
A photo, clean enough.
A short clip, steadier than most.
Not scandal. Not exposure. Just context.
Claire didn’t see the camera. She didn’t need to. She wasn’t hiding. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. That was the danger of it.
Later, much later, she heard about it sideways.
Not from Lou.
Not from Evan.
From a tone.
A suggestion dropped into a conversation that wasn’t meant to carry weight.
“You’ve been busy… off-set too, right?”
She smiled. Nodded. Let it pass.
But the seed had landed.
Strike didn’t send anything. Not yet. He wasn’t stupid. He knew leverage lost value when used too soon. And despite what he said out loud, he did need the collaboration. Japan mattered. Momentum mattered. Options mattered.
Mara hadn’t offered him anything concrete. She couldn’t—not yet. The company she’d moved to needed her reach, but they didn’t trust her enough to let her open doors freely. She was on a leash she pretended not to feel.
So Strike waited.
He filed the image away. Not as a threat. As insurance.
Claire felt it fully a few days later, when a meeting shifted shape. When a conversation about focus turned gently toward optics. When someone used the word distraction and smiled like it was concern.
That was when she understood.
Nothing had been taken from her.
Nothing had been accused.
But something had been reframed.
She went home that night quieter than usual. Evan noticed, but didn’t push. He didn’t know yet. And part of her didn’t want him to.
Because this wasn’t about them.
It was about how easily a city could turn movement into meaning. How proximity became narrative. How success invited observation that wasn’t neutral anymore.
Somewhere else, Strike closed his phone and went back to rehearsal, perfectly pleasant.
Somewhere else, Lou reviewed schedules, unaware a decision made in good faith had loosened something she couldn’t pull back.
And somewhere else, Mara listened, patient, learning who was willing to wait—and who would move when the time came.
Nothing broke.
But something shifted.
And the season, quietly, tilted toward rivalry that didn’t need to announce itself to be real.
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They’d taken over the soundtrack so thoroughly that no one even pretended otherwise anymore.
By the time plates hit the table, the conversation had already moved past whether the group was leading the moment and into what came next. Neon Pulse sat at the edge of that question — not failing, not irrelevant, just… stuck in a version of themselves that no longer fit the room.
That was when Clancy spoke.
Not loudly.
Not urgently.
Like she’d been listening the whole time.
“I’m here to turn them,” she said calmly, sipping her drink.
A pause.
“Turn them?” someone echoed.
Clancy smiled. “Vampires.”
That did it.
Imogen choked on her laugh. “Of course you are.”
“Cute culture expires,” Clancy continued, unbothered. “It doesn’t age. It curdles. You scrape it off or it turns into algae.”
Claire snorted. “That’s… vivid.”
“Luminescence,” Clancy corrected. “They had it. Then it calcified. Happens all the time.”
Someone down the table muttered, “Is this why Max keeps giving Claire those covered-up necklaces? Symbolism?”
“Oh my god,” Imogen said immediately. “Is that what that is?”
Claire rolled her eyes. “They’re just necklaces.”
“Sure,” Imogen replied. “And I’m a monk.”
Clancy leaned forward, elbows on the table now. “The thing is — controversy already did half the work.”
Strike, who’d been quiet until now, lifted an eyebrow.
Imogen didn’t miss her opening. “He didn’t deny a damn thing when those two were run through the press for being tarts and coming over to his apartment.”
Strike smiled thinly. “I deny what needs denying.”
“And it all cleared out,” Imogen went on. “Didn’t it?”
Clancy nodded once. “Exactly.”
The table quieted — not because it was tense, but because it clicked.
“I’ve got bad,” Clancy said lightly. “A lot of it. Rumour. Suggestion. Edge. If the public’s already clinging to it, I’d rather give them something intentional to hold onto.”
“Make them villains?” someone asked.
“No,” Clancy replied. “Make them fun.”
She gestured vaguely, like sketching a silhouette in the air. “Dark doesn’t have to mean joyless. Vampires flirt. They joke. They survive centuries because they adapt.”
Claire smiled despite herself.
“You want to make them a little bad,” she said.
“In the good sense,” Clancy agreed. “Before they die as powder puffs who once glowed and then… didn’t.”
Lucas laughed, shaking his head. “That’s brutal.”
“It’s accurate,” Clancy said. “And accuracy ages well.”
Strike finally leaned in. “And where do I fit in this little resurrection?”
Clancy looked at him directly now. Measured him. “You’re not the centre. That’s why you work.”
Strike didn’t bristle. He considered it.
“You have the range,” she continued. “You understand restraint. You don’t panic when things get misread. That makes you useful.”
“Useful,” he repeated dryly.
Lucas grinned. “She means indispensable.”
Clancy smiled. “I mean optional — which is more powerful.”
Strike laughed at that, genuine. “Fair.”
Lucas tapped the table. “I know how Strike thinks,” he said. “I think I can bring him around if you want. No promises. But I’ll try.”
Strike glanced at him. “You always do.”
The mood loosened again — jokes flying, riffs on fangs and daylight clauses and what vampire chic actually meant in practice. Someone suggested capes. That was shut down immediately.
By the time dessert arrived, it was clear: Neon Pulse wasn’t being saved.
They were being reintroduced.
Not cleaned up.
Not softened.
Just sharpened enough to last.
And for the first time in a while, the table wasn’t talking about survival.
They were talking about fun.
The Calendar Collision (No One Says the Word “Competition”)
The meeting is efficient. That’s what makes it dangerous.
Dates appear on the screen first — not titles, not concepts. Just weeks. Narrower than they used to be. January compressed between recovery and expectation.
Someone clears their throat.
Someone else smiles too quickly.
“Post-holiday engagement rebounds faster now,” an executive says mildly. “The audience doesn’t want to wait.”
No one mentions who they’re waiting for.
Neon Pulse’s tentative window sits there, clean and confident, marked as flexible. Another block appears just beside it — not overlapping, not separate enough to be polite.
Eclipse Girls.
Mara doesn’t speak. She doesn’t have to. Her presence is implied in the confidence of the placement.
Lucid’s window floats further out — international markets, overseas rollout, touring logic already assumed. They aren’t part of the fight. They’re the horizon everyone keeps glancing toward.
“This isn’t a conflict,” someone says, too quickly.
Lou doesn’t move. She watches the spacing. The way daylight and night are being forced into adjacency without ever being named as opposites.
“This can work,” another voice adds. “Different energies.”
But calendars don’t care about energy.
They care about attention.
The meeting ends with agreement that feels mutual and resolves nothing. Everyone leaves with the same dates and slightly different interpretations.
That’s how collisions start here.
II. Mara Introduces Eclipse Girls (Internally)
Mara stands at the head of the room like she belongs there.
Because she does — provisionally.
Eclipse Girls sit behind her, aligned without trying to be. Clean silhouettes. Open expressions. Light reflected deliberately, not accidentally. Their concept doesn’t need explanation. That’s the point.
“We’re not responding to trends,” Mara says calmly. “We’re offering relief.”
Someone nods.
“The market is saturated with edge,” she continues. “Darkness performs well, but it exhausts. Eclipse Girls are about renewal. Emotional safety. Forward motion.”
A slide appears: white space, soft colour, faces that don’t challenge — they invite.
“This is a home-market group,” Mara says. “They belong here.”
Not global.
Not experimental.
Here.
She doesn’t mention Neon Pulse. She doesn’t need to.
“We’re not racing anyone,” she adds. “We’re stabilising.”
That word lands.
Stability is what labels say when they mean control.
The executives exchange looks. This is safe. This is sellable. This is easy to defend.
Mara watches it register, carefully neutral.
She doesn’t smile.
III. Neon Pulse Smells the Leak
Neon Pulse doesn’t panic.
That’s how you know they’ve changed.
They sit around the table, phones face-down, listening to the summary no one wanted to hear twice.
“Eclipse Girls,” one of them says slowly. “That name wasn’t public.”
Another member frowns. “Neither was the concept detail.”
Silence.
They don’t ask how it leaked. They already know. Information doesn’t fall out of the sky. It walks.
“So we’re night,” someone mutters. “And they’re… what. Sunrise?”
“Rebirth,” another says dryly. “Because of course.”
The vampire concept suddenly feels heavier — not wrong, just observed. When something becomes contrast instead of choice, it loses autonomy.
“They’re positioning us as a phase,” one of the girls says quietly.
That’s when it clicks.
They weren’t being competed with.
They were being contained.
No one raises their voice. No one storms out. But something tightens.
“If we push harder,” one says, “we look niche.”
“If we soften,” another replies, “we look scared.”
They exchange looks. The rat smell lingers — not betrayal, exactly. Just exposure.
Someone took a story that wasn’t finished and told it early.
And now they’re being judged on a narrative they didn’t author.
IV. Lou Realises the Bind (Too Late to Unsee It)
Lou sees it at night, alone with the calendar.
Not in the meeting. Not in the emails. In the silence after.
Lucid overseas. Unbothered. Still setting the standard from a distance. Their absence from the domestic fight makes them untouchable.
Neon Pulse pressed into night. Asked to perform edge with restraint. Too much and they’re indulgent. Too little and they’re obsolete.
Eclipse Girls glowing with permission. Allowed to be new, clean, hopeful — framed as what the market needs.
Three forces.
One season.
And Lucid — the benchmark — not even playing the same game.
Lou exhales slowly.
She recognises the mistake now: by trying to stabilise everything, she let timing become narrative. By assuming goodwill, she underestimated symbolism.
This isn’t rivalry.
It’s definition warfare.
She can’t pull Lucid forward without dragging them into a domestic fight they don’t belong in. She can’t protect Neon Pulse without making them look defensive. And she can’t block Eclipse Girls without validating the idea that they’re the future.
For the first time in a long while, Lou doesn’t have a clean move.
Only mitigation.
She closes the calendar and lets the weight of it sit.
January won’t be loud.
It will be decisive.
And by the time anyone admits what’s happening, the season will already be defined — not by songs, but by what the city chose to elevate.
Lucid will be fine.
Someone always is.
The question is who survives being home.
The soundstage was colder than it looked.
Green screens stretched up into nothing, but the chill was real—seeping through the concrete, biting through boots, turning breath into faint white clouds that hung for half a second before disappearing. Crew moved quietly, hands tucked into sleeves between resets.
Claire stood centre mark.
Head to toe in chain mail, heavy and old in the way history always was. No sleek edges, no future-tech sheen—just weight, metal rings biting into fabric, the physical reminder of a world that fought with what it had.
Strike stepped into frame opposite her.
Already transformed.
His costume caught the light wrong—too clean, too advanced. Plates that suggested augmentation. Lines that hinted at something bionic beneath skin. The villain, halfway evolved.
Blue stood off to the side, arms crossed, watching the monitors, not intervening. Close enough to hear. Far enough to pretend he couldn’t.
They reset.
Claire glanced at Strike, eyes flicking over the armour.
“Wow,” she said lightly. “You’ve really leaned into the future.”
Strike smirked. “Adapt or die.”
“Funny,” she replied. “That’s what everyone says right before they leak something.”
Strike laughed under his breath. “Is that what this is?”
She shifted her weight, chain mail chiming softly. “I don’t know. I just heard the rivalry’s already started. And you’re suddenly very… contained.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Careful.”
“Oh, I am,” Claire said pleasantly. “I’m always careful. That’s why I’m asking—wouldn’t be you who let something slip, right? Especially now that you’ve got your feature and the girls need all the help they can get.”
Strike exhaled, breath fogging between them. “You think I’d nail their coffin after signing onto the project?”
“I think,” Claire said, smiling, “that you’re very good at keeping insurance.”
That landed.
Strike studied her for a beat, then shrugged. “A night like that humbles you.”
She tilted her head. “Which night?”
“The one where you realise everyone’s watching,” he said. “Including the people you didn’t expect to care about.”
Claire stepped closer, chain mail shifting. “And Evan?”
Strike didn’t dodge it. “I could’ve made noise there too.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No,” he admitted. “Didn’t feel right.”
She searched his face—not accusing, just assessing. “Why protect us?”
Strike scoffed lightly. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
She smiled wider. “You’re terrible at lying when you’re tired.”
He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I owe Mara things. That’s true. But this?” He gestured vaguely between them. “This was going to happen with or without me. I’m not setting myself up to fail just to prove I still have claws.”
Blue shifted slightly, still silent.
Strike continued, quieter now. “And for what it’s worth… I think Jae-yeon deserves her redemption too. She took a hit confiding in Mara. She knows it. I’m not interested in punishing people forever.”
Claire nodded once. “Good. Because we’re planning to play Mara hard and fast.”
That got a grin. “I figured.”
“So,” she said, voice light again, “are you going to do the right thing by them? Or do I need to start treating you like the villain on and off camera?”
Strike laughed. “You already do.”
She shrugged. “Occupational hazard.”
He sobered, meeting her eyes. “If I want to stay under Apex Prism’s guidance, I don’t burn bridges that still carry weight.”
“Good answer,” Claire said. “Try keeping it.”
They held the look for a moment—steam curling between them, tension cooled into something usable.
Blue finally spoke. “Reset in thirty.”
Strike stepped back into position, adjusting his armour. “You know,” he muttered, “Lucas hits the same way you do.”
Claire smirked. “That’s because we know where it hurts.”
He chuckled. “Fair.”
They took their marks again—future and past facing off, neither fully innocent, neither fully villainous.
And for now, at least, the fight stayed where it belonged.
On camera.
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Cut.”
The word echoed and the set dissolved immediately.
Crew exhaled. Someone laughed too loudly. The green screens suddenly looked like what they were—fabric and scaffolding, not fate. Claire stayed still for a beat, breath fogging, chain mail heavy against her ribs.
And then she felt it.
Not a sound.
A pull.
She turned just enough to see Evan at the edge of the set, two cups in his hands, steam curling up like a promise. Coffee for her, tea for someone else—he always guessed right, and even when he didn’t, it still counted.
Her shoulders dropped.
“Hey,” he said, soft, like the day hadn’t just tried to take a chunk out of her.
She smiled, tired and bright all at once. “You came prepared.”
“For once,” he said. “There’s food too. Actual food.”
Her eyes widened. “Marry me.”
“Already on the list,” he deadpanned.
She gestured toward herself, metal clinking. “It’s gonna take me a while to get all this off.”
He glanced at the armour. “I’ll pace myself.”
They walked toward her trailer van together, Evan keeping step as assistants moved in, already unfastening clasps, lifting weight from her shoulders.
Inside, the space warmed quickly—hands working efficiently, jokes flying as each layer came off.
“Freedom,” Claire sighed as the last of the chain mail slid away.
One of the assistants grinned. “You say that every time.”
“Because it’s always true.”
Evan handed her the cup, fingers brushing. She wrapped both hands around it like it was sacred.
“I hope you didn’t catch that argument,” she said casually, a little too casually.
He shrugged. “Didn’t catch all of it. But Blue sort of… flagged it.”
She looked up. “So you know now.”
“What he’s capable of?” Evan said gently.
She nodded.
He took a sip of his tea, thinking. “I wouldn’t be too worried about him.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“I think he knows what side his bread’s buttered on,” Evan said. “And yeah—maybe he’s a little jealous.”
Claire snorted. “That tracks.”
“But,” Evan added, meeting her eyes, “he also seems capable of forgiving and forgetting. At least when it counts.”
She leaned back against the counter, relief easing something she hadn’t realised she was holding. “I hope he and Jae-yeon make the right choices from now on.”
“They probably will,” Evan said. “Or they’ll learn the hard way not to deal with Mara again.”
Claire laughed softly. “One can hope.”
The assistants finished up, gathering armour, clearing space. The room felt lighter now—less metal, more air.
Evan held up the food bag. “Ready to escape?”
She smiled, wide and real. “Very.”
Outside, the cold waited. Inside, the day finally let go.
And as they stepped away from the set together, Claire realised something quietly reassuring:
Whatever destruction the work demanded, there were always moments like this—
warm hands, shared glances, and the simple relief of leaving it behind.
By the time Evan and Claire were gone, the set had thinned into shadows and half-packed gear.
Out of sight.
Out of the way.
Out of mind.
Strike didn’t linger.
He finished his notes, thanked the crew with practiced ease, and stepped into the cold like someone who’d already decided what the night was for. The phone call came after he was clear of the lot, voice low, unhurried.
“Come out,” he said simply.
There was no explanation. There didn’t need to be.
Ji-yeon understood timing better than most people understood intention.
They didn’t hide.
That was the point.
The car pulled up where it could be seen, not staged but visible enough to be noticed. Windows fogged quickly. Laughter first, then silence that leaned closer than words. When the cameras caught them, it wasn’t elegant.
It was convincing.
Hot and heavy in a way that shut down old rumours by replacing them with new ones. Denials lost relevance when something else took their place.
Ji-yeon felt it shift even as it happened.
This wasn’t just a move.
Strike was different when he wasn’t performing containment. Less careful. More present. Still sharp, still calculating—but attentive in a way that surprised her. Compatible, she realised. Not safe, but aligned.
A revival waiting to happen.
She knew he’d used what he had—glimpses, context, proximity—to get her attention again. Not cruelly. Not recklessly. Just enough to remind her that he knew how to play the board.
She also knew she could walk away.
But she didn’t.
Because relevance, when shared, felt lighter than relevance chased alone. And because sometimes, the simplest truth arrived wrapped in an old saying you resisted until it fit:
Love the one you’re with.
Strike was handsome, undeniably. Charming in a way that wasn’t rehearsed. A little dangerous—enough to feel alive without tipping into chaos.
Ji-yeon let herself lean into it.
Not as surrender.
As choice.
For now, they both got something out of it: attention redirected, narratives reset, momentum reclaimed. And maybe—quietly, without naming it yet—something more.
The car pulled away smoothly, headlights cutting through the night.
Behind them, rumours rewrote themselves.
Ahead of them, a different kind of risk waited—one neither of them pretended not to see.
And for once, Ji-yeon didn’t look back.
Lou didn’t call emergency meetings unless she had to.
Which was how all six of them ended up in the small loft conference room, dragged in from different corners of the building, coats still on, coffee untouched. The room was dim but not dramatic. Lou had the lights on. She always did when she wanted everyone to stay awake.
The five sat at the table quietly.
Claire leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, unreadable. Lucas stared at the tabletop like it might confess something. One of the twins muttered under their breath. Someone else just shook their head slowly, already exhausted.
Then the door opened.
Strike didn’t apologise.
He walked in late, naturally, dropped into the empty chair, and immediately put his feet up on the desk. Arms folded behind his head. The posture was almost impressive in its consistency.
Lou didn’t look at him at first.
“This is already everywhere,” she said flatly, tapping her phone once and setting it down. “I said containment. I did not realise you’d take that as a creative challenge.”
Strike smirked. “You never said how much containment.”
Lou finally looked up. “Don’t worry,” she added, glancing briefly toward Claire. “There’s no need to scold him. I’ve already had words.”
Strike nodded, mock-serious. “Strong words.”
“But,” Lou continued, “we are here to confront this and keep it under lids.”
Someone snorted.
“As far as we’ve heard,” Lou went on, “from Clancy — yes, Clancy — things on the other side are… conveniently shocked. Which tells me this is sculpted.”
She paused. “Believable. But sculpted.”
Strike grinned wider, clearly enjoying himself.
“I’m letting you relish in it for now,” Lou said coolly. “Because that’s already happening whether I like it or not.”
The room turned toward him.
Lucas shook his head. “Unbelievable.”
One of the others muttered, “Oh my God.”
Imogen, however, leaned forward, elbows on the table. Loud. Clear.
“How do you think this isn’t going to hurt your career?” she demanded. “You have fans. Are we just supposed to go along with this?”
Strike tilted his head. “Depends. Are you enjoying the show?”
Imogen glared. “What about Da-young? Have you thought about her?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think this hurts her in the long run. Honestly? It doesn’t look like I’m hurting enough either.”
Lou’s eyebrow twitched.
“And before anyone panics,” Strike added casually, “my management and my contract in Japan cleared this. Fully.”
Claire’s gaze sharpened.
“I’m not under your group,” Strike continued, feet still on the desk. “I can do what I want.”
Imogen scoffed. “That’s your defence?”
“In Japan,” Strike said, unapologetic, “they’d reward me for this. Because we like to f•••.”
He made a small censoring gesture with his fingers, as if dots hung in the air.
Silence.
Then a twin burst out laughing despite themselves.
Lou pinched the bridge of her nose. “You are impossible.”
“And consistent,” Strike replied. “That’s why you keep me.”
Claire finally spoke, calm, almost amused. “You done?”
Strike glanced at her, something unreadable flickering there. “For now.”
Lou straightened. “Here’s how this goes. We don’t fan it. We don’t deny it. We don’t escalate. You don’t freelance narratives without telling me first.”
Strike lowered his feet at last, sitting properly. “Fair.”
“And,” Lou added, pointedly, “you remember that riding chaos only works if you don’t get bucked off.”
Strike smiled. “I’m still seated.”
The room exhaled collectively — not relieved, just resigned.
Imogen leaned back. “I hate that this might actually work.”
Strike winked. “You’re welcome.”
Lou stood. “Meeting adjourned. Before anyone says something they can’t walk back.”
As they filed out, Claire passed Strike without looking at him.
He watched her go, the smirk fading just slightly.
The chaos was riding for now.
But even Strike knew — eventually, every entrance demanded an exit.
Evan doesn’t ask right away.
That’s the first thing Claire notices.
They’re back at his place, shoes kicked off, jackets dropped wherever gravity decided. The city hums outside, muted. He’s doing something normal — heating food, moving around the kitchen — like the world hasn’t just tried to spin itself sideways again.
Claire watches him for a moment, then exhales.
“We had an emergency meeting.”
He pauses, just briefly. Not surprised. Just… registering.
“Strike?” he asks.
“Strike,” she confirms.
He nods once and goes back to what he was doing. “Bad?”
“Loud,” she says. “But not explosive.”
That earns a small smile from him. “That’s his brand.”
She comes closer, leaning against the counter. “Lou was… controlled. Which is how I know she’s annoyed.”
Evan finally turns, resting his hip against the bench. “And you?”
Claire thinks about it. About Strike’s feet on the desk. Imogen bristling. The way it all felt simultaneously ridiculous and consequential.
“I wasn’t angry,” she says slowly. “Which scared me a little.”
Evan studies her. “Why?”
“Because part of me understands what he’s doing,” she admits. “And I don’t like that I understand it.”
He reaches out, brushes his thumb along her knuckles. “Understanding isn’t the same as agreeing.”
“I know.” She looks up at him. “But this touches us now. Even if no one says it out loud.”
That lands.
Evan sighs softly. “I figured it would.”
She watches his face carefully. “Does that bother you?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he considers it honestly — which is why she trusts him.
“No,” he says finally. “Not because I don’t care. Because I know you.”
Claire’s shoulders ease without her meaning them to.
“I just don’t want this to become… leverage,” she says. “Or noise. Or something someone else gets to narrate.”
Evan nods. “Then we don’t let it.”
She laughs quietly. “That simple?”
“No,” he says, smiling back. “But doable.”
They stand there for a moment, close, the conversation settling instead of spiralling.
“And for what it’s worth,” Evan adds, lightly, “Strike making entrances doesn’t mean he controls exits.”
Claire smirks. “Lou said something similar. With fewer words.”
“Lou always uses fewer words,” he says. “They just weigh more.”
Claire leans into him then, forehead against his shoulder. “I’m glad I told you.”
“I’m glad you didn’t have to make it a thing,” he replies.
They stay like that for a moment — no plotting, no fear — just alignment.
Whatever else was moving around them, this part stayed steady.
And for now, that was enough.
Evan had thought about it more than he let on.
Strike could have exploited the pictures. He always could have. Back then, with Koya — with moments that had lived only because no one chose to expose them — Strike had held his hand. Not out of kindness, exactly. Out of instinct. A line he didn’t cross unless crossing it paid forever.
Evan had never forgotten that.
He’d let most of it go over the years. The noise. The rivalries. The constant measuring of who held leverage and who pretended not to. But watching it circle back now, watching Jae-yeon make another dramatic choice, he understood it in a way that didn’t surprise him.
She’d always reached for control when love threatened to unseat her.
Prestige. Power. The armour of relevance. Even humiliation, if it meant staying upright. Evan had known her instincts before she’d known them herself — the way she would leap first, then convince herself it was destiny.
She wouldn’t have done it otherwise.
And maybe that was the mercy of it.
His gaze drifted back to Claire.
She was sitting sideways in the chair, knees bent up slightly, one foot tucked beneath her, glasses low on her nose as she scrolled through notes. The lamp caught the edge of the frames, softened her features, made the room feel smaller, safer.
Beautiful, he thought — not as an exclamation, but as a fact.
There was something sacred about these evenings. The quiet hum. The way time loosened its grip when they were like this. All the compromising positions they’d ever been in — public, strategic, unavoidable — faded here. Reduced to nothing more than shared air and trust.
He hated the idea of this being exposed.
Not because there was anything to hide — but because some things lost meaning the moment they were handled by anyone else.
What he possessed, he knew he would protect.
Not loudly.
Not possessively.
Just by staying where he was. By choosing restraint. By honouring the small, human moments that never asked to be currency.
Claire shifted slightly, adjusting her glasses, unaware of his watching.
Evan smiled to himself.
Whatever else the world tried to claim, this — this was theirs.
Before the Noise
Japan always made things clearer.
Not softer — clearer.
Strike sat back in the chair across from Hero, his manager, hands folded behind his head, the posture familiar enough to be almost defensive. The office wasn’t large, but it didn’t need to be. Clean lines. Glass. The kind of space where decisions didn’t linger once they were made.
Hero didn’t waste time.
“I handed you to Mara because I thought you’d grow,” he said plainly. “And you did. Just not in the direction we needed.”
Strike sighed. “Korea likes sweet.”
“Korea likes safe,” Hero corrected. “Japan likes relevance.”
That stung, but Strike didn’t argue.
He already knew the problem. He wasn’t the teenage heartthrob anymore. Past twenty-five, the screams softened. The fan letters changed tone. You could feel the shift — admiration instead of infatuation, distance instead of devotion.
“You were built as a pop star,” Hero continued. “Then an actor. Touring. Moving. Bilingual. Global before global meant anything. But now? You’re in between.”
Strike shrugged. “Acting’s the only thing I’m convincing anyone of anymore.”
Hero leaned back. “Then we sharpen that. This role — it’s not a villain. It’s transition. Reflection. Stakes. Growth. You don’t need to be loved. You need to be interesting.”
Strike smiled faintly. “You always know how to sell it.”
“And,” Hero added, eyes narrowing slightly, “you need balance.”
Strike groaned. “Here it comes.”
“You need a girlfriend,” Hero said calmly. “A steady ambience. Something that grounds you. Either we fabricate one carefully, or you find one yourself.”
Strike laughed. “You say that like it’s easy.”
Hero smiled back. “You pulled publicity stunts in LA and New York without even committing. You were halfway in, halfway out.”
Strike looked away. “I knew it was over when Evan entered the picture.”
Hero raised an eyebrow but didn’t interrupt.
“I thought with Mara,” Strike went on, “I’d gained enough leverage. Enough control. Thought the group would see me differently. But it didn’t hold. Mara pushed herself into a corner — and like a cockroach, she survived it. Another group. Another angle.”
Hero nodded. “She always does.”
Strike exhaled. “When Apex Prism offered the collaboration, I wasn’t going to take it. It threw my preferences off. I was trying to win Claire. I faced it too late.”
“You tested leverage,” Hero said evenly.
“I did,” Strike admitted. “I took pictures. Of Evan. I thought maybe I could push.”
Hero didn’t react.
“But I realised something,” Strike continued. “I couldn’t go up against him. I’d just get squashed. That wasn’t going to work.”
“So you changed direction.”
Strike nodded. “I saw a weakness I’d seen before. Someone who didn’t like the unity between Claire and Evan. Not the way I’d hoped.”
Hero’s expression tightened. “Ji-yeon.”
“She drew attention to herself,” Strike said carefully. “I never said anything publicly. But she stepped into it on her own.”
Hero studied him. “And Mara?”
“Mara placed them,” Strike said flatly. “Drinks. Wine. Dinners. An ‘accident.’ Almost took the group down. That wasn’t on me.”
Silence stretched for a moment.
“Things are… okay now,” Strike added. “There’s chemistry. I’m not in love. But I could be. She’s not repulsive.” He paused, then smirked. “That’s high praise from me.”
Hero sighed, rubbing his temple. “Could this go further?”
“An engagement?” Strike asked, amused. “Maybe. Contracts are messy. Confidentiality is tight. It wouldn’t be easy.”
“But possible.”
Strike nodded. “With your help. With alignment.”
Hero leaned forward then, gaze sharp. “Then treat her like a princess.”
Strike blinked. “That serious?”
“It’s your career,” Hero said. “And she comes from a high-profile family. You’ll be watched either way. Do it right.”
Strike held up his hands. “I know. I know. It’ll work out.”
Hero wasn’t finished. “If she takes off in Japan, they’ll receive her as one of our own. A bridge.”
Strike smiled. “Neon Pulse needs to expand. Japan’s waiting.”
“And Apex Prism will bring more groups,” Hero said. “This agency grows. You grow.”
Strike leaned back, finally relaxed. “I need to grow too.”
Hero stood, signalling the end of it. “Then don’t forget what got you here.”
Strike rose as well, adjusting his jacket. “I won’t.”
As he left the office, the thought followed him — easy, almost comforting.
Smooth sailing.
He was fond of Ji-yeon. That should be enough.
The problem wasn’t the rules.
Mara understood rules.
It was the recording of them.
Every meeting logged. Every coffee noted. Every conversation summarised into a neat internal memo that stripped tone and intention down to bullet points. She’d been warned once — politely — that external contact without clearance would be viewed as “misalignment.”
Highly useful, they’d said.
Measurable.
Defensible.
Trust, apparently, was conditional now.
She felt it in the way people paused before answering her questions. In the way doors still opened — but more slowly. In how she was invited into rooms where decisions had already been softened into consensus.
Watched.
Not overtly. That would have been insulting. This was subtler. Calendars copied in. Assistants who smiled too much. A quiet expectation that she would behave.
Mara didn’t resent the leash.
She resented that it had been necessary.
She adapted the way she always did — by shifting inward. If she couldn’t move laterally, she would deepen. If she couldn’t be visible, she would be indispensable.
Influence didn’t require meetings. It required framing.
She began to listen more than she spoke. To remember who deferred to whom. To notice which executives wanted to be seen as decisive and which preferred safety disguised as principle.
She stopped pushing ideas.
She asked questions instead.
What happens if this underperforms?
How will this be defended externally?
Who takes responsibility if it doesn’t land?
Fear, she knew, was easier to guide than ambition.
She also stopped chasing leverage directly. That was how she’d been caught before — reaching too openly, mistaking momentum for immunity.
Now she let others come to her.
A casual suggestion here. A quiet validation there. Enough to make someone feel smart for thinking the thought themselves.
She didn’t contact other companies.
She let them remember her.
There were still things she could do. Spaces she could occupy without technically stepping outside the perimeter. Strategy sessions. Narrative drafts. Internal positioning that would only be visible after it worked.
They thought they’d constrained her.
What they’d actually done was remove her noise.
And Mara had always been most effective when she was quiet.
She leaned back in her chair, fingers steepled, eyes on the glass wall that reflected her faintly — present, but not fully seen.
This wasn’t a setback.
It was a holding pattern.
And holding patterns, she knew, were where you planned the next ascent.
Mara didn’t need updates pushed to her phone.
She saw them anyway.
The photos weren’t dramatic — that was what made them effective. A car. Bodies angled close. Familiar body language that suggested comfort rather than performance. Not posed enough to look planned. Not careless enough to look accidental.
Strike Chaplin and Ji-yeon.
Together.
Mara stared longer than she meant to.
This wasn’t the version she’d anticipated.
She’d always understood Strike as volatile but predictable — ego-driven, reactive, reliant on friction to stay relevant. A man who needed edges to feel alive. Someone who could be steered, redirected, slowed when necessary.
Useful.
She’d assumed that if he attached himself to anyone, it would be temporary. Tactical. A placeholder that collapsed under scrutiny.
But this—
This had weight.
Not romance. Not yet.
Alignment.
She recognised it immediately, the way you recognise a structure forming before it’s named. Strike wasn’t chasing attention anymore. He was settling into it. Choosing where to stand and letting the room adjust around him.
That was new.
Mara felt the pang before she admitted it.
She’d underestimated him.
Not his ambition — she’d never doubted that. But his restraint. His willingness to step back instead of lunge. To let a relationship do narrative work he used to do himself.
Ji-yeon wasn’t decoration.
She was cover.
She was recalibration.
She was access.
And worse — she was willing.
Mara scrolled again, slower now.
Ji-yeon looked grounded. Not dazzled. Not desperate. That meant she wasn’t being handled. She was choosing.
That unsettled her more than any stunt would have.
Mara had always believed that control came from proximity. From being the one in the room, the one with the plan, the one who could orchestrate outcomes by sheer force of presence.
Strike was proving something different.
Control could come from absence. From not reacting. From letting others exhaust themselves while you consolidated.
And Ji-yeon — careful, wounded, ambitious Ji-yeon — had become the pivot.
Mara leaned back in her chair, fingers tightening slightly around her phone.
She hadn’t lost influence.
But she’d lost exclusivity.
Strike wasn’t hers to predict anymore. He wasn’t orbiting her gravity. He was building something adjacent — a structure that didn’t need her permission to exist.
That was the danger.
Not betrayal.
Independence.
Mara exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing not in anger, but recalculation.
Underestimation was a mistake she rarely made twice.
And now that she’d seen the variable clearly, she knew one thing for certain:
Whatever came next wouldn’t be improvised.
It would be precise.
She didn’t expect the call to be returned.
That was her first mistake.
The second was assuming the tone would be negotiable.
“Don’t do that again.”
The voice on the line was calm, but there was no softness in it. No room to test edges.
She smiled reflexively, the old habit. “Do what, exactly?”
“You know what,” he said. “The call. The suggestion. The reminder dressed up as concern.”
Silence stretched. This wasn’t how these conversations usually went.
“I was trying to help,” she said lightly. “You always used to appreciate—”
“Back then,” he cut in, “you confused proximity with permission.”
That landed harder than he raised his voice.
“I let a lot go,” he continued. “Especially at the beginning. What you did between me and Imogen. The way you nudged, redirected, made things look accidental when they weren’t.”
She inhaled slowly. “You’re rewriting history.”
“No,” he said evenly. “I’m finishing it.”
Another pause. This one longer.
“If you reach for that again,” he went on, “I won’t look the other way. I’ll expose it. Properly. Not theatrically. Not emotionally. Just clean facts.”
Her jaw tightened. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would,” he replied. “Because Strike and Imogen are both my friends now. And I don’t owe you silence anymore.”
That was the real shift. Not anger — detachment.
“You’ve got your own group,” he said. “Your own calculations. Keep them there.”
She tried once more, softer this time. “You’re choosing sides.”
“No,” he said. “I’m choosing boundaries.”
The line went quiet for a beat.
Then, final and unadorned: “Back off. For once.”
The call ended without ceremony.
She stared at the screen long after it went dark, the weight of it settling not as humiliation — but as certainty.
This time, there would be consequences.
And she knew better than to pretend otherwise.