Robin—forever elegant, forever wearing a warm smile, the singer who always soothed countless souls with her voice—was now unexpectedly crying uncontrollably on the empty stage like a lost child.
Her delicate body trembled all over, her sobs raw and desperate, as though she could barely breathe.
"Lucian... Lucian..." Robin's broken sobs slipped out between gasps. "I miss you... I miss you so much..."
Even though those farther away couldn't hear her words clearly, those nearby could make out the words between her muffled sobs.
"Lucian? Who's Lucian? Is there even someone named Lucian here? It's a man's name, right?"
"Miss Robin said she misses him—what kind of relationship would make her say that?"
"She's crying like this just because she misses that Lucian guy? No doubt, they've gotta be lovers!"
"Lover? Does her brother know about this?"
Naturally, the beautiful manager standing beside Robin also heard her words.
'Lucian? Who's Lucian?'
Ever since Robin made her debut, she had been almost everywhere with her, yet she had never once heard of anyone who had ever gotten close to Robin by that name.
"Hiks... You really don't want me anymore...?"
Needless to say, Robin's emotions had already been overtaken by her second set of memories.
She couldn't hold back the longing in her heart.
She couldn't stop the tears.
She couldn't stop herself from breaking down.
"Little bird, what are you crying for?"
Just as Robin was about to plunge into even deeper despair, a familiar voice—one carrying a hint of teasing, one she could never mistake even across countless lifetimes—suddenly cut through her cries.
It sounded as if it were right in front of her, clear and piercing.
"Have you... written a thousand songs for me yet?"
As the voice, still tinged with gentle teasing, resounded once more, Robin's sobbing stopped at once. Her hands froze in place over her face, as if someone had pressed a pause button, while her trembling shoulders went completely still.
In that instant, it was as if the whole world itself fell silent, and only that dreamlike voice echoed in her ears, resonating deep within her soul.
Slowly, bit by bit, she lowered her hands, revealing tears that had already streaked across her flawless, delicate face. Tiny droplets clung stubbornly to her lashes, making her beautiful eyes look like a rain-washed, starry sky—misty, fragile, and unreal.
Robin hurriedly wiped the tears away, and her blurred vision finally cleared.
One meter away from her, the familiar figure she had longed for stood tall as ever, radiating the same sense of safety she remembered so clearly.
At the same moment, every eye in the theater turned toward the unknown figure who had suddenly appeared before Robin.
Robin's pupils shrank, her breath caught, then—
"Lucian!"
Completely forgetting her own image, Robin kicked off her high heels and ran barefoot toward that figure with all her strength, like a weary bird finally finding its home, throwing herself straight into his arms.
Lucian caught her body firmly, then looked down at his little bird, crying her heart out in his embrace.
Feeling her hot tears soaking through his shirt, that warmth and weight so real and tangible, his heart couldn't help but clench painfully. He tightened his arms around her fragile, delicate body, holding this lost-and-found little bird close.
Resting his chin on her soft silver hair, he drew in a deep breath of her familiar scent.
"You liar... You lied to me... I wrote a thousand songs for you, and you never came back... I wrote another thousand, and you still didn't come back..."
Robin clung to Lucian's collar as if she wanted to melt into him and complained endlessly in a muffled voice.
"Yeah, I'm sorry—something had happened, so I couldn't come back..."
Lucian's deep voice carried a calming warmth as he spoke beside her ear, a faint, helpless smile in his tone.
"But I'm back now... I didn't break my promise this time..."
Meanwhile, as the pair were lost in their own world, every Robin fan who witnessed the scene, present or not, was utterly stunned—their jaws nearly hit the floor.
"Wh-When did that guy even show up?!"
"Holy shit! Was Miss Robin crying earlier because... because of him?!"
"So... she was talking about missing that man?"
"He's so handsome! No wonder he could win Miss Robin's heart—it's so unreal!"
"Who the hell is he? How can someone be that good-looking? Fuck! It's unfair!"
"Robin! Why are you in someone else's arms?! No! ROBIIIN—!!!"
Shock, realization, excitement, disbelief—all exploded at once throughout the theater, but at the center of the stage, the pair embracing each other seemed to exist in their own tiny world, completely cut off from the outside world's noise.
Robin's crying slowly turned into small, muffled sobs and faint complaints, mixed with broken words like 'jerk,' 'liar,' and 'I waited so long.'
As expected, within just minutes, the news of this occurrence hit the top of the trending list.
[Robin cries onstage until her boyfriend appears!]
[Shocking! Robin's boyfriend's handsome looks surpass the galaxy!]
[Singer Robin and her boyfriend show intimacy onstage!]
In mere moments, Lucian had become the newest celebrity in the Epsilon system, the number-one enemy of Robin's male fans, and a new idol to countless female fans thanks to his otherworldly looks.
"Little bird, there are too many people here. Let's go home first."
Lucian glanced around at the surroundings and suggested softly, which was answered by a nod of agreement from Robin.
Although she had countless questions she wanted to ask him as soon as possible, this wasn't the right place to ask them.
In the end, she let her manager handle the aftermath and followed Lucian out of Epsilon by teleporting.
Consequently, the manager became the reporters' prime target.
"Oh, Robin, you're killing me with this mess... Suddenly having a boyfriend and not even telling me? And you even showed it in public so brazenly like this? Hahhh..."
Seeing Robin vanish with the supposed boyfriend, the manager remarked with a helpless smile.
===
Meanwhile, several minutes ago in Penacony, when Sunday was still seething with fury over Robin's tearful outburst and was just about to exit the Dreamscape to board his spaceship, which was bound for Epsilon, a new set of memories suddenly surfaced in his mind.
He instantly halted mid-step and clutched his head, a deep frown adorning his face.
Mother, sister, as well as a step-father who was also his idol—an entire new life's worth of memories suddenly surged forth, filling his mind as if he had lived a second life in mere seconds.
It was a set of memories completely different from his current life.
"Wh-What's going on? Who's tampering with my mind? Is it the Masked Fools... or Aha...?"
Given what had happened to his sister, Sunday immediately tied it to the Masked Fools and the Aeon of Elation THEMSELF, playing tricks on him.
"Damn it... First, you toyed with my sister, and now you're trying to toy with me too?"
Even though he was convinced that Elation was behind it, it was futile, as the second set of memories was steadily taking over his mind.
In just seconds, Sunday gradually felt himself changing, and his obsession with the Order was slowly being replaced by another one.
"I... turned back into a pure follower of Harmony? How?"
Sunday muttered to himself, wearing a dumbfounded expression.
He was supposed to be a follower of Order who wielded the power of Harmony.
How had he suddenly reverted to a pure follower of Harmony?
Now, the discordant voices of the Order disappeared—he could no longer hear the echoes of the Order at all.
Needless to say, this was a serious problem for his plan.
As Sunday fell silent, lost in thought, a dark-purple raven descended and landed on his shoulder.
"Mr. Gopher Wood, what is it?"
Sunday, noticing the raven, snapped out of his train of thought and asked calmly, masking his anxiousness.
"Sunday... I just... I just had a strange dream..."
Gopher Wood, in the form of a dark-purple raven, spoke solemnly, looking down.
"In my dream, there was a man who told me to live peacefully in Penacony... He... He trusted me so deeply and wanted me to keep spreading the doctrines of Harmony."
"In that dream, there were no nasty political struggles, no assassinations, no burned-down buildings."
"And when I woke up earlier, I realized the voices of the Order inside my head had vanished, and I soon found that I've turned back into a pure follower of Harmony again..."
"It's so strange..."
Hearing Gopher Wood's account, Sunday was dumbfounded once more.
How could he not, when even Penacony's Dreammaster was also affected?
Who on earth had turned both pillars of the Order back to Harmony?
===
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