If it is a nightmare, please make it stop.
Please.
“She’s here, Moeya, she’s here!”
Moeya can hear Yuena’s voice from the other end of the radio and scampers off her seat to find Tiero.
“Where?” Moeya hisses, “Can you see where?”
“She’s walking on stage now,” Yuena replies, and Moeya believes her. Yuena is sitting right in front of the master console, the center of all camera screens. Yuena has the best seat in the house and she can see everything Moeya and the rest of the crew backstage can’t.
“She came late,” Yuena continues. “I saw some people coming in; they sat in the middle somewhere, and went up stage straight away. It’s her, darling. It’s Sia! She’s on now!”
Moeya quickens her pace toward the center backstage near the gigantic background screen. She can hear Sia’s voice on the other side, speaking softly in a stable stride. There aren’t real emotions there, Moeya notices, just a weave of gentle words of praises, spoken in the way only Sia knows how.
But something is wrong.
Moeya stops short at the sight of Tiero running from a distance in front of her, in and out of streaming lights from the stage with an expression she can only understand as fear.
“Oh God. No, no, no, not this -”
Moeya grabs the closest person near her, hissing as loudly as she possibly can as she grabs the man off his feet, “Get somebody! Anybody! It’s Tiero!”
She ignores the man’s questions that dissipate at the sight of Tiero scampering toward the backstage stairs. She waves at a group of men squatting nearby, pleading with a blinding panic to stop him from reaching the stairs.
“What’s happening?” Yuena questions her, the girl’s voice panicking at the scuttling noises Moeya makes as she and some of the crew members grab Tiero slipping on the stairs, catching him in time as Sia gives her final words.
“What’s going on?!” Yuena shouts in Moeya’s ear. “Moeya! What’s happening back there?!”
Moeya has not the breath to answer her. She holds Tiero’s slender frame on her shoulder, feeling his beating heart next to her own failing breaths, and hears herself talking to him in a quiet, almost defeated voice, “Let it be, Tiero. Let it be. It’s too late now. It’s okay. Let it be.”
Tiero grabs the railing next to him – shoving the crew member aside – his other arm grabbing Moeya by the shoulder and stares into her eyes with a look she can’t comprehend. But his breath stops short at a roar of voices from the audience on the other side of the stage; a swarm of cameras clicking and flickering flashlights, and thundering noises following the emergence of Sia slipping through the exit behind the gigantic screen, followed by silhouettes of people behind her, protecting her from the eyes of the world.
“Goodness …” Sia pauses, stopping midway the staircase, noticing both Moeya and Tiero in probably the worst expression Moeya can recall ever giving a master guest. Sia squints her eyes to adjust to the darkness around her and walks slowly down to approach them, her face lighting up almost brilliantly with warmth and relief.
“Sia.” Moeya musters an awkward wave. “Hey, hi.” She pushes Tiero to stand up straight, but the guy is already standing rigidly next to her. “Awesome speech,” Moeya continues, feeling foolish all of the sudden.
“Hi,” Sia replies, her smile rising from between her lips and reaches down to hug her. “Hope it wasn’t too bad.”
Moeya steps back, watching Sia in her awesome robe of black and gold, just like the Japanese porcelain princess she always was, gliding gently through the thick silence between her and Tiero, and reaches out her arms slowly to embrace him. There was ample time for Tiero to dismiss her, but he reaches down and engulfs her in his embrace, somehow completely unwilling to let her free.
Moeya can almost die of a sudden stroke, or happiness; either one she can’t quite tell. Her heart palpitates randomly in such a way, everything seems to blur out of sight and voices linger in mid air, floating through her like still waters of the tropical sea, warm as the tears that burn down her cheeks.
“Hi you,” Moeya hears Sia says.
“Hi you,” Moeya hears Tiero’s reply.
“It’s been a while,” Sia continues.
“And I’ve missed you every moment in between,” Tiero replies.
