The concert ended two hours ago.
But somehow…
Saloni mind was still stuck inside that stadium.
The loud music had disappeared.
The screaming crowd was gone.
Even the purple lights had faded from her eyes.
Yet one thing refused to leave her head.
That moment.
That eye contact.
Saloni unlocked her phone for the fifth time in ten minutes before throwing it beside her dramatically.
“This is embarrassing,” she groaned, covering her face with a pillow.
Her best friend immediately laughed from the other side of the video call.
“You’re acting like he proposed.”
“He didn’t even look at me,” she defended herself instantly.
“Mhmm. Sure.”
She rolled her eyes.
Because honestly?
She hated how affected she still felt.
It wasn’t supposed to matter this much.
She had loved NOVA7 for years.
She had watched hundreds of kairo videos.
She knew how easy it was for fans to misunderstand tiny interactions.
And she never wanted to become one of those people.
Maybe that’s why she kept trying to convince herself it meant nothing.
Because reality was still reality.
He was kairo.
And she?
She were just another girl trying to survive life quietly.
A normal girl with messy emotions, random migraines, hidden insecurities, and a habit of smiling even when everything felt exhausting.
Her thoughts paused for a second.
Without realizing it, she opened Instagram again.
Another concert clip appeared instantly.
Kairo was laughing in the video while running across the stage.
The comments moved too fast.
“HE LOOKS SO HAPPY.”
“HE’S GLOWING.”
“PROTECT HIS SMILE FOREVER.”
She smiled softly at the screen.
But then the video slowed slightly near the end.
And suddenly— that smile disappeared for barely two seconds.
A tiny moment.
Almost invisible.
But she noticed it.
The exhaustion in his eyes.
The way his shoulders dropped slightly after the cameras moved away.
And for some reason…
Her chest hurt again.
“Why do I feel sad looking at someone who has everything?” she whispered quietly.
Maybe because pain doesn’t disappear just because someone is famous.
That thought stayed with her longer than expected.
Her phone buzzed again.
Friend:
“You’re overanalyzing a 2-second expression.”
She stared at the message before typing slowly.
“Maybe.”
Then after a pause:
“But sometimes people smile too much when they’re tired.”
Her friend stopped replying after that.
She placed the phone down beside her before walking toward her balcony quietly.
The city looked calm tonight.
Cool wind touched her face softly while distant traffic sounds echoed below.
Usually nights like this made her overthink more.
But tonight felt different somehow.
Her mind drifted back toward the concert again.
Not the performances.
Not the music.
Just him.
The way he bowed respectfully to fans.
The way he kept checking if everyone around him was okay.
The way he smiled even while looking exhausted.
And suddenly…
She realized something that made her heart ache.
She didn’t admire him because he was perfect.
She admired him because he still stayed kind despite looking emotionally tired sometimes.
Maybe that’s why she could never understand people who treated idols like objects.
To her, he never felt unreachable in a cold way.
He felt human.
Too human.
And maybe that was dangerous.
Because caring too much about someone who didn’t even know you existed always ended painfully.
She knew that.
Still…
Her eyes moved toward the moon instinctively.
And before she could stop herself, she whispered softly into the quiet night:
“I hope you’re resting properly.”
A small smile appeared on her lips immediately after.
“See? This is exactly why I need help,” she muttered to herself.
But deep down— the concern felt real.
Too real.
And somewhere far away, inside a brightly lit hotel room in another city…
Kairo sat silently while removing his in-ear monitors.
The room was full of staff voices and movement around him, yet his thoughts stayed somewhere else completely.
For a strange reason…
he suddenly remembered one quiet girl standing in the crowd.
The one who didn’t scream.
The one who looked at him like she was trying to understand something.
His eyebrows furrowed slightly.
Then he shook the thought away almost immediately.
“kairo-ah, rehearsal in twenty minutes,” Jihoon reminded softly.
“Yeah,” he answered quickly.
But even while standing up— a tiny part of his mind still remembered her eyes too.
✨
> *”Sometimes people smile the brightest…
> because they don’t want anyone noticing how tired they really are.”* 🌙