Fisticuffs

It wasn’t supposed to be like this after a show—especially a New York show. It wasn't like those old vids said. There should have been chatter, laughter. Instead, there was silence, broken only by the faint tap of Lena’s fingers on the edge of the holo-table in front of her.

She leaned back in her chair, scrolling through the comments on her palm screen, her brows drawn tight. They weren’t all bad, but the bad ones stuck out like barbs.

“Get back in the Orb, Astra.” “Didn’t pay for a concert to watch a machine onstage.”

Lena exhaled sharply through her nose, her hand curling into a fist.

“Unbelievable,” she muttered.

Across the room, Elise shrugged from where she was slumped on the couch, one leg draped over the armrest. She had a cup of something steaming in her hands—tea, maybe, or one of those awful protein brews she insisted were good for you. She didn’t even look up.

“There’s always going to those kinds of people. You know that," Elise said.

Lena turned to her, incredulous. “This wasn’t just a few people booing, Elise. There were signs. Friggin picket signs! Who brings that to a concert! Fights, too. They’re calling us cheaters. Of what?”

“They’re calling Astra a cheater,” Elise corrected, her tone dry. “You? You’re just collateral damage.”

“That doesn’t make it better!” Lena shot back, standing up so quickly her chair scraped loudly against the floor.

Elise finally looked at her, her expression calm but not unkind. “You can't please everyone. You should know that more than anyone.”

Lena stared at her, disbelief bubbling under her skin. “And you think this is normal? Expected?”

Elise gestured vaguely with her cup. “When you use state-of-the-art tech, yeah. You’ve seen the speculation. Some of the Net thinks we’re an experiment, not artists. Which I think is bull.”

Lena groaned, running a hand through her hair. “But we didn’t do anything! We gave them everything and more, for their entertainment.”

“And they always want more,” Elise said simply, leaning back like this was the most obvious truth in the world. Yet, there was something there, something even Lena couldn't spot. 

Lena sank back into her chair, her shoulders slumping. “It’s too much. I thought… I don’t know. I thought they’d respect us for trying something different. I thought they could see that.”

“You’re taking this too personally.” Elise added after a moment, her tone softening. “This isn’t about you. It’s about them. And this particular collab… well, we’re not exactly making it easy to be understood. Usually we could just go online and write a statement or something. But as you said, Apex has different expectations this time around.”

Before Lena could respond, the door creaked open. Maya stepped inside. It was the most anti-Maya thing she had ever seen.

Her shoulders sagged, her hair sticking slightly to her forehead, her face pale under the harsh dressing room lights. She pulled off her boots with slow, heavy movements, tossing them to the side without care.

Lena frowned. “Maya?”

Maya glanced at her, flashing a weak smile. “Don’t start.”

“What do you mean, ‘don’t start’? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Maya muttered, collapsing into the nearest chair. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, her head hanging low.

“Maya,” Lena said again, softer this time.

Maya let out a long breath, running a hand through her curls. “It’s nothing. Just… the usual. Post-show crash.”

Elise raised a brow. “You don’t usually crash this hard.”

“Well, it’s been a long night,” Maya said flatly, her voice sharp enough to end the conversation.

Lena bit her lip, watching her for a moment. Maya, who always carried herself like the world couldn’t touch her. Maya, who had just owned the stage and silenced a crowd with nothing but her voice. 

Lena glanced at Elise, who shrugged, her expression unreadable.

“Well,” Elise said, standing and stretching, “if this is the vibe tonight, I’m going to bed.”

“You’re leaving?” Lena asked, frowning.

“There’s nothing to fix here,” Elise said simply. “You’ll stew, Maya will pretend she’s fine, and I’ll still be here tomorrow when you’ve both worked it out. Good night.”

She walked out without another word, her cup still in hand, leaving Lena and Maya alone in the quiet.

Lena turned back to Maya. “You sure you’re okay?”

Maya let out a soft laugh, though it sounded hollow. “No, Lena. I’m not. But I will be.”

The honesty caught Lena off guard.

“What happened out there—”

“Forget it. The show’s done. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

Lena hesitated, then nodded, leaning back in her chair.

"These comments are ripping into Elise as well," Maya said quietly. "I don't know. She always gets macho-macho like this when something goes wrong. And... next thing you know, she can't take it anymore. She is training even harder than Kiko now. Harder than you. Lena, the perfectionist. I don't think I have seen her call friends back home once."

"She ain't flashy."

"So what? If we are all flashy then there is an imbalance. It is basic Idol group things. It is like people are searching for anything to destroy us with."

"Caden is looking into it."

Maya sighed. "Let's hope he finds something, then."

\\

The door slid open with a faint hiss, and Margot stepped inside with the kind of nonchalance that only came from watching chaos unfold while knowing it couldn’t touch her. 

Her coat’s faintly glowing seams pulsed softly as she surveyed the room, her eyes landing on Lena slumped at the holo-table.

“Well,” she said, leaning against the doorframe, “didn’t realize gratitude was extinct in New York.”

“They’re Zenith fans,” Maya muttered from the corner, her voice low and exhausted. She held a compact cryo-pack to her wrist, letting the cooling pulse seep through her skin. “Gratitude isn’t their thing.”

Margot let out a short, dry laugh, stepping further inside. “Fair. How bad is it?” She gestured toward Lena’s palm screen, still casting a faint glow over the holo-table.

Lena shrugged, barely glancing up. “Bad enough. Fraud. Cheater. ‘I miss when Idols were real.’ The usual.”

“The overzealous Zenith stans looking for their five seconds of fame? Shouldn't put too much stock in that...”

Lena shot her a glare. “Does it matter? How many Zenith fans would pay for a very expensive ticket just to rain on another Idol group’s parade? Not many.”

“It should matter,” Margot said simply, settling onto the edge of the table. “This is textbook Zenith. Stir the pot, make you look like the villain, claim they’re saving art from the big bad Apex machine. They’re good at it, I’ll give them that.”

“They’re loud enough to make it everyone else’s problem,” Lena muttered. “Plus, I am not convinced we are completely blameless here.”

“How is it when something goes wrong, the first instinct you have is to blame yourself and find something to hate? They’re loud because they’re insecure. Full stop. You walk onto a stage and hold a crowd without all the things they swear you need to succeed. And when you try to gain an advantage to keep up with the competition... that scares them.”

“Feels more like they just hate us.”

“Same difference,” Margot said, brushing an invisible thread off her coat. “But sure, let’s pretend this is the first time someone’s doubted you.”

Lena tensed. “Don’t.”

Margot grinned, leaning forward slightly. “Oh, I will. Remember your debut? NetOrb prelaunch? You disappeared for two days because some guy called you ‘boring.’”

“I wasn’t disappearing,” Lena said defensively. “I was… recalibrating.”

“You were hiding,” Margot corrected, smirking. “And all because you ghosted some guy who thought your NetOrb calibration test was a date.”

Lena groaned, dragging her hands down her face. “That wasn’t a date.”

“Sure it wasn’t,” Margot said. “What did he call you again? ‘Starry eyes’?”

“Margot.”

“For three months straight,” Margot added, grinning wider.

Lena couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped her, though it was more a reflex than real amusement. “Why do you remember stuff like this? It's creepy.”

“Because it’s funny,” Margot replied easily. “And because you keep acting like this is the first time someone’s thrown a rock at you. It’s not. You’ve handled worse.”

Lena’s smile faded, her fingers drumming lightly on the table. “This feels different.”

“Okay, but it’s not,” Margot said firmly. “It’s louder, sure. Messier. But it’s the same game. You’re still standing, and they still hate that.”

Lena didn’t respond. She stared at her reflection in the dimmed holo-table, her face warped and fractured by the curved surface.

Margot stood, brushing off her coat. “Look, you can keep doing this—staring at comments until they burn into your retinas—or you can remember why you’re here. You’re not an Idol because it’s easy. You’re here because no one else can do what you do. Let Zenith scream. They’re just scared you’re still winning.”

She headed for the door, then paused, glancing back with a faint smirk. “You could always retire, though. Full-sensory holovids of your old shows. Sell 'em on demand on the Net; you know those... what do you call them... Sensory Memories. I hear they’re popular.”

Lena picked up a stylus and lobbed it at her, missing by a mile. “Ew. Out.”

Margot laughed as the door hissed shut behind her.

Maya, who had been quiet for most of the exchange, finally let out a low chuckle. “She’s got a point.”

“She’s insufferable,” Lena muttered, though her lips twitched into a faint smile.

“Yeah, but she’s not wrong,” Maya said, setting the cryo-pack down.

The room settled again, quiet but not heavy. Lena glanced at her palm screen, still glowing faintly with comments she didn’t want to read.

Margot was right. She’d handled worse.

But it still hurt.

Lena leaned back, letting out a slow breath. “Still here,” she whispered.