Sleep came to Sakura in fragments.
That night, her dreams pulled her back to the dinner she had tried so hard to forget.
She stood again beneath the golden lights, the city glowing like a sea of stars below her feet. Everything looked softer in the dream, unreal, as if wrapped in mist. The flowers were back on the table, untouched. The candles burned steadily. No glass was broken yet.
Koharu stood across from her, just as she had that night—coffee-shaded suit, nervous eyes, hands clasped tightly to hide their trembling. In the dream, Sakura noticed details she had ignored before: the way Koharu's shoulders were tense, the way she inhaled before speaking, as if afraid of saying the wrong thing.
"You came," Koharu said in the dream, her voice quieter than Sakura remembered.
Sakura opened her mouth, but the dream shifted.
Suddenly, she was watching herself from the outside.
She saw her own anger, sharp and sudden, spilling over before words had time to soften. She saw the flowers being thrown, petals scattering like accusations. She saw Koharu reaching out—not powerful, not commanding, but desperate.
Then came the push.
The glass.
The blood.
Sakura's chest tightened even in sleep.
The dream rewound, replayed, then changed again.
Now she was back in the present, standing on an almost-empty stage. The lights flickered, and when she looked down, the floor beneath her feet was made of contracts, emails, and trophies—each one dissolving as she stepped forward.
Koharu's voice echoed from somewhere unseen.
"I only wanted you happy."
Sakura pressed her hands over her ears, but the words slipped through anyway.
She woke up with a sharp breath, her heart racing, sweat clinging to her skin.
The dorm room was dark and quiet. The soft breathing of her members filled the space, grounding her. Sakura sat up slowly, pulling her knees to her chest.
Guilt settled heavy in her stomach.
Did I decide too quickly? she wondered.
She had been so angry—angry at the control, angry at the manipulation, angry at realizing how much of their success had been built inside someone else's world. Koharu's world. A world of money, influence, and invisible strings.
We were living in her shadow, Sakura thought bitterly.
That anger still burned.
But now, tangled with it, was something else.
Regret.
She hadn't listened. Not really. She had seen obsession and power and danger—and she hadn't been wrong. But she also hadn't seen the fear behind Koharu's eyes, the loneliness hidden beneath control.
Sakura clenched her fists.
"I didn't ask for that world," she whispered into the dark. "I wanted us to stand on our own."
Yet standing alone had cost them everything.
The guilt wasn't about Koharu alone—it was about OG. About Aiko's tears. About Hana's forced smiles. About stages shrinking and voices fading.
Maybe I should have handled it differently, she thought. Maybe I should have talked instead of exploding.
But another part of her resisted.
If I went back… would it really change anything? Or would we just become dependent again?
Sakura lay back down, staring at the ceiling.
The dream lingered, refusing to fade.
That night hadn't just changed their careers.
It had split her heart in two—between pride and regret, freedom and survival.
And as sleep finally claimed her again, one truth remained painfully clear:
No matter how much she tried to move forward, the night she met Koharu still owned a piece of her.