Page 29 of The Encore’s Crown

I lean forward and catch Signe’s attention with a quick smile, pitching my voice just enough to carry. “So. You surviving the Asia leg so far, or plotting mutiny?”

Signe turns, clearly pleased. “Ask me again after Tokyo. But so far? Worth it.”

“Good, we like having you. You keep my brother on his toes, he needs another guitarist to show him up every now and then.” I nudge Rithy and he gives an exaggerated eye roll in response. I keep the conversation going, asking about the last venue, the crowd, a gear mishap last night. She responds easily, animated, clearly enjoying the attention.

Natalia listens. I can feel her listening, quiet but present. She glances at me once, surprised, then looks back down, fingers worrying the strap of her purse. The flight attendant comes through, soft voice, practiced smile. Safety checks, trays up, all the usual choreography. I barely register it.

Rithy leans back in his seat, eyes half-lidded, but I can feel him watching the reflections in the glossy divider. He murmurs, barely audible, “Something has… changed.”

“Shut up,” I whisper back.

He hums, unconvinced.

As the plane taxis, Natalia finally looks up and our eyes meet, brief and unguarded. There’s something there I didn’t expect. No challenge or the usual annoyance I’m used to, a connection. It hits me hard, settling somewhere that doesn’t let go easily. She looks away first, cheeks faintly flushed, turning back to Signe as the engines roar to life.

The plane lifts, smooth and quick, Seoul falling away beneath us and as the ground disappears, there’s nowhere left to pretend this is simple. Because sitting here, watching her laugh softly with someone else, feeling that irrational pull tighten instead of loosen, I realize something I don’t want to name yet. Whatever this is now, it already matters more than I planned for.

Whatever she’s pulling from me, I can’t stop it. And that scares the hell out of me.

The seatbelt sign goes off and the cabin exhales all at once, that restless stretch of people who’ve been contained too long. Overhead bins slam open, bags hit seats, and Liv laughs like she's relieved to feel human again. Signe is on her feet immediately.

“I’ve got it,” she says to Natalia, already reaching for the overhead bin before she can even stand.

Natalia hesitates. “Oh, you don’t have to—”

“It’s happening, accept it.” Signe rises onto her toes and tugs the bag free. It slips a little, and Natalia reaches up to steady it. Their hands brush briefly, skin on skin, barely anything.

Signe freezes like she’s been struck by lightning. “Herre jävlar,” she says solemnly, pressing a hand to her chest. “That’s it. I’ve been touched by the divine. This is how I go. Please tell my story, that I fought bravely so Odin will welcome me.”

Natalia laughs, startled and unguarded, a sound that hits me right in the sternum. “There was no fighting. That was a distinct lack of fighting. I’m not lying to a god for you.”

“I’ll never make it into the halls of Valhalla now,” Signe sighs, handing Natalia the bag like it’s blessed. “At least tell my parents I died well.”

My jaw tightens before I notice I’m doing it. I clear my throat loudly and yank my own bag down from the overhead, slinging it over my shoulder with more force than necessary.

“Shit,” Rithy mutters as the strap nearly clips him. “You nearly took me out.”

He studies me, noticing things in that way he does. As we move down the aisle, he taps my shoulder with his boarding pass. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Something definitely changed.”

“I said shut up,” I mutter.

He hums again, annoyingly satisfied.

Rafe and Kasia managed to get ahead of us, probably due to the live theater I watched Signe perform on Natalia. My eyes follow them as they cross the jet bridge and he automatically pulls Kasia into his side. She leans into him like her body knows where home is. They share a soft kiss, and Ronan laughs while Freja nudges him. The whole thing looks easy, effortless, normal in the kind of way that feels almost peaceful.

My heart feels like it’s waking up to something I keep denying myself, something I see all around me but never managed to hold. I should be happy for them. I am happy for them, aren’t I? They deserve it, they fought for it, they found each other even when everything felt impossible. But somehow it still feels like I’m being punished for wanting something, someone too.

We spill into the terminal, swallowed by the bright, orderly calm of Japan. Everything here feels precise, clean lines and soft voices, intentional movement and order. It’s beautiful, but it leaves no room to hide from anything I don’t want to think about.

As we walk, the thought keeps chewing at me. Am I just the cautionary tale everyone uses as a warning? Doesn’t it count for something that I keep my head down when Rafe and Rithy disappear into hour-long debates about lyrics and phrasing and half-second timing? Doesn’t it matter that I’m the one who goes to get food for all three of them while they hammer out the details that make the music what it is?

I’m the one who brings back the takeout bags and the sweating drink cups. The one who fills the quiet spaces so everything else can keep moving. The support, the muscle, Mr. Dependable with nothing of my own going on, not a creative thought in my big, dumb head. I can keep this up forever, I don't need more. When did I become just the fuck up to warn Natalia about? The jacked one, the quiet one, the one without the vision who just plucks the strings sometimes?

Rithy shrugs on his leather jacket as we approach customs, the same one he’s kept since he turned sixteen. The one I bought him for his birthday, back when he needed armor. Back when he came home bruised and called it falling, but he was really fighting with kids he never named. Code for something we both understood. Weak kid. Which really meant the gay kid. The one who wasn’t built like me and didn’t get girls like me.

I’d been bulking up since puberty, lifting whatever I could get my hands on: furniture, phone books, push-ups until my arms shook. If I got big enough, maybe Dad would stop. Maybe I could stand between him and everything he tried to break.

Rithy went inward instead. Built a life inside his own head. Music found him and wrapped itself around him when nothing else could. When I got too old to cover his ears, I used headphones. Discman spinning Sabbath or Pantera, anything loud enough to drown out the noise of our house. I joined him. Something to share. Something to hold us through it. Turned out the music was good, and it gave me something to lift to.