He rummages through a drawer and triumphantly produces a pair of neon green shutter shades.
“Really?”
“They’re aerodynamicandglow in the dark.”
“They won’t stop stage lighting.”
He shrugs. “Suit yourself, lighthouse,” and goes right back to arguing about tempo.
I back out and knock on Kiri’s door next. He opens it already dressed, bass leaned carefully against the wall like its sleeping, strap folded just so at its feet. Everything in the room feels placed, calm.
“I need sunglasses,” I say.
He looks me up and down, assessing the situation the way he listens before he plays. “For the look?” he asks. Then, a pause. “Or for medical reasons?”
“Both. Trying not to look like atotal twatif possible.”
He's already turning, rummaging through his backpack with the same patience he brings to a bassline. He pulls out a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses from an old meet-and-greet. A gift, she’d said at the time, pressing them into his hands along with a teddy bear. Said Kiri was the living embodiment of the stuffed toy, big, solid, eyes full of warmth. That to her he was really Bomos, The Altar you come back to when the world gets heavy, the place to lay your burdens on. He’d gone still at that, genuinely touched. He must have been. He kept the sunglasses and still carries them.
“Iconic,” he says solemnly. “The fans would lose their minds. A real throw back.”
“Hard no.”
He sighs like I’ve disappointed him deeply. “You never commit to the bit.”
By the time I reach Rithy’s door, I’m already regretting everything. He lets me in quickly before dropping back to the floor, cross-legged amid scattered fragments of lyrics and half-mapped melodies. His guitar is abandoned nearby, where it was clearly thrown down mid-thought, cable like a trail of blood.
He moves through the mess with monk-like focus, lips shaping soundless words, tasting each line before deciding if it's worthy of survival. This isHaimaat rest, which means everything keeps flowing. The blood never stops moving.
“Tell me you have real sunglasses,” I say.
He doesn’t look at me. “As the residentfashion-forwardicon that I am, of course I do.”
“Thank fuck.”
“No,” he says mildly. “Not fuck.Thank me.” He finally glances up, eyes full of that restless heat that made his stage name so obvious. “But first, what do we say when asking for a favor?”
“Please.”
“There,” he says, satisfied. “Manners cost nothing. A dying art.”
I gesture vaguely at my face. “Running short on those, pain does that.”
He nods once, satisfied and reaches into his suitcase. What he pulls out is perfect, wraparound sunglasses with a deep crimson frame. They are absurdly stylish, a little intense and clearly expensive, just like him.
“Stand still.”
He steps in close and slips the glasses on himself first, just to check the fit, testing it before I might stretch them out, just to beannoyingly pedanticlike the perfectionist he is. Then he lifts them off and puts them on me with gentle care, fingers brushing my temples, adjustingthe arms behind my ears. His touch is light, precise. Intimate in a way that feels accidental if I don’t think about it too hard.
Then he reaches up, palms warm as he cups my face, thumbs settling just under my cheekbones. It’s something we’ve done a hundred times in other contexts, fixing eyeliner, wiping sweat, grounding each other before a performance. But this time, he tilts my chin down, just slightly, enough to make me look. His eyes flick over me, slow and assessing, mouth curving.
“There,” he says softly. “Just as hot as usual, evenwithyour eyes covered,Obelus. They’lleatyou up.”
With his eyes on me, my heartbeat syncs to the wild, living rhythm he carries into every room. I’m suddenly aware of how close we are, how his hands haven’t dropped, how the dark lenses frame his mouth in shadow. He leans in, barely an inch. Enough that I feel it. Then he spins around at the last second, all motion and deflection, heading back to his pile of inspiration. He tosses a wide grin over his shoulder.
“You’ll break even more hearts tonight.The power of polarization.”
“Polarization? I call it fuckingrelief. You saved my life.”
