Mira Hayashi's mornings had taken on a new rhythm, one that began not with the shrill beep of her alarm or the rush to review her medical notes, but with the soft glow of her phone screen and the quiet tap of her fingers against the glass. She sat cross-legged on her unmade bed, the early morning light filtering through the thin curtains of her apartment, casting a pale golden hue across the room. Her hair was a tangled mess, her dark brown eyes bleary from another restless night, but there was a flicker of warmth in her chest as she opened Kael Min's fan message board, her daily ritual now as essential as breathing.
"Dear Kael," she typed, her voice a whisper in the stillness. "It's 6:47 a.m., and I'm supposed to be studying for my pharmacology exam, but I can't focus. I keep thinking about your song, Shattered Stars. There's a line in it—'I'm breaking, but I'll shine for you'—and it's been stuck in my head all week. It feels like you wrote it for me, even though I know that's silly. I've been breaking a lot lately, Kael. I failed a practical last week, and my professor said I need to 'get it together.' I'm trying, but it's so hard. Your music is the only thing keeping me going. I hope you're doing okay today. You deserve all the happiness in the world."
She hit send, the message vanishing into the digital void, and leaned back against her pillows, her heart a tangled mix of hope and despair. This was her fourth message this week, each one a little longer, a little more personal, as if the act of writing to Kael could somehow bridge the chasm between their worlds. She'd started messaging him daily after that first impulsive post, pouring her heart into words of encouragement and snippets of her life—her struggles with medical school, her small joys like the cherry blossoms she'd seen on her walk to the hospital, her fears that she wasn't good enough. But none of her messages were marked as read, the little "seen" icon stubbornly absent, and the silence was starting to weigh on her like a stone.
Mira glanced at the clock—7:02 a.m.—and sighed, forcing herself to her feet. She had a full day ahead: a lecture on cardiology, a shift at the hospital, and a study group she couldn't skip again without raising Aiko's suspicions. But as she shuffled to the kitchen to make a quick cup of instant coffee, her thoughts kept drifting back to Kael, to the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, he'd see her words today. She imagined him scrolling through the fan board, his warm brown eyes softening as he read her message, a small smile tugging at his lips. The thought made her cheeks flush, a warmth spreading through her chest, but it was quickly overshadowed by a familiar pang of foolishness. He was an idol, a star with millions of fans. Why would he notice her?
The day unfolded in a blur of lectures and hospital corridors, the sterile scent of disinfectant clinging to her clothes as she moved from one task to the next. During a brief break between rounds, Mira stole a moment in the hospital cafeteria, her tray untouched as she pulled out her phone again. The cafeteria was a cacophony of clattering trays and overlapping conversations, but Mira barely noticed, her focus narrowing to the fan message board as she typed another message to Kael.
"Dear Kael," she wrote, her fingers trembling slightly. "I'm at the hospital now, on a break. I just helped a patient—an elderly man with heart failure. He was so kind, but I could see the fear in his eyes, and it broke my heart. I wish I could do more for him, for all of them. I keep messing up, Kael. I forgot a dosage today, and my supervisor scolded me in front of everyone. I feel so invisible here, like I'm not enough. But then I think of you, of your voice, and I feel a little stronger. I listened to Echoes of Dawn on my way to work, and it made me smile for the first time today. Thank you for that. I hope you're smiling too, wherever you are."
She sent the message, her heart sinking as the "seen" icon remained absent. She scrolled through her previous posts, a litany of her hopes and fears, each one a piece of her soul laid bare. None of them had been read—or so she thought. The lack of response gnawed at her, a quiet rejection that piled onto the stress already threatening to crush her. Her pharmacology exam loomed like a storm cloud, her grades slipping with every missed study session, and the constant pressure to be perfect at the hospital was eroding her confidence. She felt like she was fading, her light dimming with every unrequited word she sent into the void.
---
Across the city, Kael Min sat in a quiet corner of his recording studio, the walls lined with soundproof foam that muffled the outside world. His bandmates had left for lunch, leaving him alone with his thoughts and a half-finished track on the computer screen. He leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his tousled dark hair, his warm brown eyes shadowed with exhaustion. The past few weeks had been a whirlwind of rehearsals and interviews, each day blurring into the next, but amidst the chaos, a small ritual had emerged—a secret he kept even from his manager.
He opened his phone, navigating to the fan message board with a mix of anticipation and guilt. He wasn't supposed to check it often—his team had warned him about getting too attached to fans—but ever since he'd stumbled across MiraH's first message, he couldn't stay away. Her words had struck a chord in him, their raw honesty a stark contrast to the polished adoration he usually received. He scrolled to her latest post, the one she'd sent from the hospital, and felt a pang in his chest as he read her confession of feeling invisible, of struggling to keep going.
Kael's fingers tightened around his phone, a wave of gratitude washing over him. Mira didn't know it, but her messages had become a lifeline for him, a quiet source of courage amidst his own struggles. He'd been battling a creative block for weeks, the pressure to produce another hit album weighing heavily on him, but her words reminded him why he made music in the first place—to reach people, to make them feel seen. He wanted to reply, to tell her how much her support meant to him, but the rules of his world held him back. Instead, he saved her message, a small act of rebellion against the distance between them, and whispered a quiet promise to himself: one day, he'd find a way to let her know she wasn't invisible to him.
---
Back at her apartment that evening, Mira collapsed onto her bed, her body aching from the long day. She pulled out her phone one last time, the fan message board a bittersweet comfort as she typed her final message of the day. "Dear Kael," she wrote, her voice trembling with unshed tears. "I don't know why I keep writing to you. You'll probably never see this, and I feel so stupid for hoping you will. I'm so tired, Kael. Everything's falling apart, and I don't know how to fix it. can't stop thinking about you. You make me feel like I'm not alone, even if you don't know I exist. I wish I could be braver, like you. Goodnight."
She sent the message, her heart heavy with the familiar sting of silence, and curled into a ball, her pillow damp with silent tears. She felt invisible, her efforts unrequited, her light fading under the weight of her struggles. But as she drifted into a fitful sleep, a thin red thread—invisible to her eyes—shimmered faintly in the air, its crimson strands stretching across the city, connecting her heart to Kael's in a bond neither could yet see.