Lucid Dreams played their first show without Kanna at a midsize venue in Osaka, the second stop on the Silverset support tour.
It was clean. Technically tight. Riku, their session drummer, didn't miss a beat. But no one came backstage afterward to say the usual things—you guys had real energy, that last song hit hard, I could feel the emotion. Instead, there were polite claps. A few nods. The sense that the crowd had watched something impressive, not moving.
Mika smiled through it all. Signed posters. Took selfies. Winked at fans and cracked jokes. She'd always been the warm one, the bright light.
But afterward, as she packed up her bass alone, she noticed something: her fingers were trembling.
The second show, in Nagoya, went worse.
Aki snapped at a sound tech. Shino missed her vocal cue on Sky After Rain. Riku kept his eyes locked on the setlist the entire time, like he was waiting for it to end. After the show, they went straight back to their hotel, barely speaking.
In her room, Mika stared at the ceiling, her phone resting on her chest.
She opened her photo gallery. Pictures from their early days flooded the screen: Kanna laughing with drumsticks in her mouth, Aki trying to look cool and failing, Shino tucked into a corner with her guitar and a soft smile. And Mika herself, always in the middle. The glue.
The peacemaker.
She opened the group chat, typed something, deleted it.
Again.
Then she tossed the phone across the bed and curled up, her eyes burning.
—
The turning point came in Fukuoka.
Backstage before the show, Aki was running through pre-set notes with military precision. Riku nodded. Shino sat a little ways off, hunched over her guitar, tuning it silently. Mika watched them both and felt the urge rising in her chest like a slow boil.
"Hey," she said suddenly. "Can we talk?"
Aki looked up. "We're ten minutes from call."
"I don't care."
Shino blinked.
Mika stood in the center of the dressing room, her bass hanging from her shoulder. "I need to say this now, because if I wait, I won't say it at all."
Aki raised an eyebrow. "Okay…?"
"This isn't working."
Silence.
Shino slowly lowered her guitar.
"I know you both feel it," Mika said, voice tight. "We're falling apart, and we're pretending we're not. But I'm done pretending."
"You want to quit too?" Aki said, half-laughing. "Is that it?"
"No," Mika said. "I want to be heard. For once."
Aki opened her mouth, but Mika cut her off.
"Do you know how many times I've watched you two argue and said nothing? Because I thought if I stayed quiet, things would settle? They didn't. They just got worse."
She turned to Shino. "And you—I love you, Shino, but you can't keep ghosting us emotionally and then acting like you're the only one who cares about the music."
Shino flinched.
"And Kanna's gone because none of us saw how much she was breaking. I should have seen it. I was supposed to be the one who kept everyone together. But I didn't. I just kept smiling and hoping things would fix themselves."
Aki crossed her arms. "You think you're the only one holding things in?"
"I think we all are," Mika said. "And it's killing the band."
A beat passed. Then two.
Shino stood and walked over. Her voice was quiet. "You're right."
Aki didn't move. Her jaw clenched.
Mika looked at both of them. "So we either be honest from now on—or we stop."
Shino nodded. "I choose honesty."
Aki looked away. For the first time, she didn't have a retort ready.
Mika's voice cracked. "I just want us to mean it again. I want to get off stage and feel something."
"You still feel nothing?" Shino asked.
Mika smiled bitterly. "Sometimes I feel like a placeholder. Like if I vanished tomorrow, no one would notice until load-in."
"Don't say that," Aki said, suddenly, sharply.
Mika looked at her. "Then show me it's not true."
—
That night, they played one of their better sets. Not perfect—but more real. Mika looked at Aki during the chorus of Shadow in Bloom, and Aki looked back. Shino's solo was messier than usual, but it bled emotion.
The crowd clapped hard. Someone shouted "Encore!"
Backstage afterward, the silence between them felt different. Not hostile. Just… cautious. Like the ground had shifted.
Mika sat on a folding chair and exhaled.
Shino handed her a bottle of water. "Thanks for saying what you said."
Mika took it. "I was scared."
"Of what?"
"Of the truth."
Shino nodded. "Me too."
Aki lingered near the exit, then turned. Her voice was low. "You don't have to be the glue anymore, Mika. We'll stick—or fall—together from now on."
Mika smiled, soft and tired. "Let's hope we don't fall."
—
But somewhere in the back of all their minds, the truth Mika had voiced refused to fade.
The center had shifted.
And once something shifts, it rarely shifts back.