The room was quieter than it should've been.
AUROR@'s dressing suite — normally a warzone of open palettes, noise, and explosive laughter — felt like a pressurized chamber today. The aftermath of the concert had made them all a little less talkative. A little more careful.
Anika had her feet up on the table, scrolling through her phone with one perfectly manicured hand and stress-eating a sleeve of strawberry Pocky with the other.
"I swear," she muttered, half-laughing. "I saved a puppy from drowning in Busan last year and didn't even trend for five minutes. But one girl gets rescued by a man-shaped meteor and she breaks the Internet."
Mei-ling, hunched over her drawing tablet in the corner, looked up and wiggled her eyebrows.
"He was kind of dreamy, though. Like… dangerous-quiet. Like a Studio Ghibli spirit but with delts."
Anika made a face. "Please never say 'delts' again."
Ji-yeon wasn't there. Their leader had been swept into a strategy meeting with upper management earlier. That left Lisa with no buffer.
She was seated at the long counter mirror, dabbing concealer under her eyes with a sponge — even though the stylist would fix it all again later. Her fingers trembled slightly. She ignored it.
Sakura sat nearby, flipping slowly through a makeup catalog. She hadn't said much since the incident, but she hadn't left Lisa's side, either.
"What are people saying?" Lisa asked quietly.
Anika shrugged, not looking up from her phone. "Depends. Some people think it was a stunt. Others think he's some kind of vigilante. A few edits are going viral — slow-mo shots, physics breakdowns, that kind of thing."
Mei-ling chimed in. "They call him The Wanderer."
Lisa's hand paused mid-swipe. The sponge hovered near her cheek.
"The Wanderer," she repeated.
"Yeah," Mei-ling said. "Apparently, he's shown up before. Canada, Nepal, Turkey — always blurry footage. No face. Just someone saving people and vanishing. It's kinda cool. Like a myth that's somehow real."
Lisa didn't answer. She'd seen the clips. She'd watched them that night — again and again, until her eyes burned.
Each moment had the same rhythm: danger, blur, rescue, vanish.
Only one of them had shown his face.
Only one had looked back.
Anika tossed her phone onto the couch. "Whatever he is, he saved all of us. That rig would've flattened the stage."
Mei-ling nodded, eyes wide. "It was so fast. One second we're doing dancing, the next, everything's falling."
Sakura added softly, "And then it wasn't."
Lisa lowered her sponge. She couldn't look at any of them.
"He didn't have to come back," she murmured.
They turned to her, startled.
"He didn't have to save us. He knew what it would cost."
Anika raised a brow. "You knew him, didn't you?"
Lisa hesitated. Then nodded. "A long time ago."
"Was he your—" Mei-ling began, but stopped. "You know."
Lisa's mouth moved — almost a smile, almost not.
"It's complicated."
Anika leaned back, crossing her arms. "So what now?"
Lisa met her gaze in the mirror. Her voice was steady — almost too much so.
"Now? I pretend it didn't happen. Until someone tells me I can't."
No one spoke for a moment.
Sakura reached out and gently touched Lisa's sleeve.
"But it did happen," she said.
"And he didn't just save us.
He saved you.
Because he came back… for you."
Lisa looked down, her throat tightening.
"I know."