Chapter 31: The Idol's Curse

Conrad drifted upward through a fog of darkness, the world returning in fragments — the soft beep of a heart monitor, the faint scent of antiseptic, the cool weight of blankets pressing against his legs. His chest ached, not sharply but with a heavy, dull throb, as if someone had placed a stone directly over his heart.

He blinked. Light flooded his vision, blurry at first, until it sharpened into a familiar shape. His wife, Magali.

She was sitting at his bedside, her hands woven tightly together, her forehead resting against them. Tear tracks dried on her cheeks, but her blue eyes were still bright and alert — as though she hadn't slept at all. When she saw his eyes open, she exhaled a breath that escaped her like a breaking dam.

"Oh—Conrad," she rasped, leaning closer. Her hand clasped his, trembling with relief. "Thank the stars… you're awake."

He swallowed, even that movement sending a faint sting through his chest. "Mags…? What happened?" His voice was cracked, disoriented — the voice of a man pulled from somewhere too deep.

Before Magali could answer, the door slid open with the soft hiss of hydraulics. Doctor Sohma stepped inside with a clipboard tucked beneath his arm, wearing that same expression of exhaustion and impeccable professionalism that never seemed to falter. His coat fluttered behind him as he approached the bed.

"Well," Sohma began dryly, "I'd congratulate you on waking up, but considering the circumstances, I'd say you're lucky to be waking up at all."

Conrad blinked at him. "What… happened to me?"

Sohma's eyes softened, though only slightly. "You were suffering from cardiac tamponade." Magali shuddered. She squeezed Conrad's hand more tightly, as if afraid he might slip away again.

Sohma continued, tapping the chart with his pen. "In simple terms, blood was pooling inside your pericardium — the sac around your heart. That buildup put pressure on your heart muscle, preventing it from expanding properly. It's the reason you collapsed. Your heart was essentially being strangled."

Conrad stared, confusion giving way to fear. "Blood? How?"

Sohma's gaze sharpened, his tone turning grave. "From your old injury. The attack you suffered from Brandon; the stab wound near your heart? It appears the tissue never healed as cleanly as we hoped. A small vessel finally ruptured under stress."

Magali's eyes widened. "Stress? As in—"

"Overexertion," Sohma confirmed with a nod. "Too much physical workload. Too many long shifts. Too little rest. And a heart already injured beyond what most would consider survivable." His look at Conrad was almost scolding. "Frankly, I expected better from someone with firsthand experience of death's waiting room. This is the reason you can't be an idol anymore."

Conrad winced. "I was just trying to support Magali and—"

"No." Magali's voice cut through his excuse like a blade. Both men looked at her. She stood, her posture straight, her expression suddenly fierce. The trembling that had been fear a moment ago was now something sharper — protectiveness. Determination. Love shaped into steel.

Conrad blinked. "Mags…?"

She placed both hands on the rail of his bed. "You're done working."

"What?" Conrad asked.

"You heard me," she said firmly, tears threatening again but refusing to fall. "You nearly died, Conrad. Again. I can't—" Her voice cracked. She swallowed hard and continued. "I won't let you push yourself until your heart gives out. From now on, your job is to stay home. Rest. Take care of yourself. And when the baby comes—take care of our child."

"But—"

"No." She leaned closer, her forehead touching his. "My income is more than enough to care for all of us. I'm an idol. I don't need help with money. I need you alive."

Conrad opened his mouth to argue, but Sohma raised a hand. "I'm going to have to agree with your wife," he said, matter-of-fact. "Your heart is fragile. Very fragile. This incident could have been fatal. If your boss hadn't gotten you to the hospital as fast as he did, you wouldn't be here."

Magali sucked in a breath. Conrad's hand tightened around hers. Silence settled over the room — heavy, but not hopeless. Conrad stared at Magali, seeing the fear she'd been carrying in her eyes since the moment he'd collapsed. The fear of losing him. The fear of raising their child alone. The fear of another tragedy tearing into their lives.

His voice softened. "Mags… I'm sorry."

She shook her head quickly. "Don't be. Just promise me you'll stay home. That you'll rest. That you'll… live." Her voice broke once more. "Please."

Conrad lifted a shaky hand to cup her cheek. "Okay," he whispered. "I promise."

Relief washed over Magali in a trembling wave, her shoulders finally sagging as she leaned gently against Conrad's chest. She could hear his heartbeat — fragile, irregular, but alive — and for the first time since the phone call, she allowed herself to breathe.

Doctor Sohma watched silently, the chart in his hands closing with a soft snap. But his expression didn't soften. If anything, the seriousness in his dark eyes deepened, a shadow settling over his features like a cloud passing over the sun.

Conrad noticed immediately. "…Doc?" he asked, forcing a small smile. "So what now? I just take some medicine, get some rest, and call you in the morning?" He meant it as humor, a light attempt to break the tension; but Sohma didn't laugh. He didn't even smile. Magali felt her pulse spike.

The doctor's gaze shifted between the two of them before landing, with surgical precision on Magali. "Mrs. Artisan," he said quietly, "may I speak with your husband in private?"

Magali blinked. "Private? Why?"

Her hand on Conrad's tightened. "We're married. If there's something wrong with his heart, I have every right to hear it."

Normally, Sohma would have relented. But this time, he didn't. His posture straightened. "It's a matter of patient confidentiality."

Magali bristled. "And I am his wife. We share a home, a life, a bed — not to mention a baby. I think I'm entitled to—"

"Mags." Conrad's voice cut gently through her rising frustration.

She turned to him, startled. His eyes weren't angry. They were pleading. "Please," he whispered. "Just… go home. I'll explain everything when I'm discharged."

Her heart sank. "Conrad, don't do this. Whatever he wants to say, I can handle it."

"I know." He forced a soft, tired smile. "But let me talk to him alone. Just this once."

For a moment, Magali looked between him and the doctor, feeling as though the walls of the hospital room were closing in. A dozen arguments rose in her throat…but then she saw the fear behind Conrad's calm facade. And she knew she couldn't push.

With a reluctant sigh, she reached out and brushed her fingers through his hair. "Fine." She stood, adjusting her dress with stiff movements. "But you better come home in one piece, okay?" Her voice cracked, despite the snark.

Conrad chuckled weakly. "That's the plan."

Magali leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. Then she turned, walking out of the room with her chin held high, but the moment she passed through the doorway, her composure cracked like porcelain. Her hand flew to her stomach, to the tiny life growing inside her, and she forced herself forward. Sohma closed the door behind her. The click echoed like a gunshot.

⸻

Night settled over Sweetdance City like a heavy blanket, muffling the colors, smothering the noise. Magali sat on the living room couch, a cup of tea growing cold in her hands. She hadn't taken a sip. She hadn't moved. The lights remained off. Only the glow from the streetlamps outside spilled across the floorboards, painting her in long shadows.

Hours passed. Then more hours. She waited. She rubbed her stomach when the baby fluttered. She checked the clock. She checked her phone. She prayed, something she hadn't done since she was a child; that Conrad's delay meant nothing more than formalities. But the silence stretched like a wire pulled too tight.

By the next morning, she was still awake, still waiting, her eyes red and swollen. Whatever Doctor Sohma had told Conrad… Whatever he hadn't wanted her to hear… It must be bad. She knew it. She felt it.

The front door clicked open just as the second night was creeping in, bringing with it the faint scent of antiseptic and cool evening air. Magali practically flew from the couch, nearly tripping over the blanket she'd been pacing circles around for hours.

"Conrad!" she gasped, hands already reaching for him. "What happened? Why did it take so long? What did he say?"

Conrad stepped inside with a warm, easy smile. The kind he wore when he wanted her to stop worrying, the kind that made her heart squeeze painfully. He closed the door behind him, cheeks flushed from the cold, and pulled her into a gentle embrace.

"Hey," he murmured. "I'm okay. Really."

"That's not an answer," she shot back, pulling away enough to search his eyes. "What did the doctor say?"

Conrad let out a breath — steady, calm, perfectly rehearsed. "He just wanted to ask a few very personal questions," he said lightly. "Stuff about my family history, that kind of thing. He said I'll be fine as long as I take it easy and don't overwork myself."

Magali exhaled so sharply her knees nearly gave out. "Thank God…"

Her forehead pressed to his chest, relief melting her rigid posture. Then her eyes snapped open. "Wait." She stepped back, narrowing her gaze. "Your job. What about the convenience store? You are not going back there."

Conrad grinned — bright, relaxed, utterly disarming. "Already handled. I spoke to my boss before I came home I gave him my resignation."

Magali blinked. "You… you quit already?"

"Yup." He chuckled softly. "Had a few minutes to say goodbye to everyone. They were sad to see me go, but they understood. And they wished us — all three of us — well."

Her relief crashed into her so hard she let out a shaky laugh. "Good. Because if I catch you working again…" She poked his chest firmly. "I'll kill you myself."

Conrad laughed, warm and familiar, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "Noted. No more working. Promise."

She allowed herself to relax, to lean into him again. They stood there, wrapped in each other, breathing the same quiet air as if the world hadn't almost fallen apart two days prior. As if everything truly was fine.

Eventually, Conrad helped her back to the couch. They talked about baby names. About nursery colors. About their future. By the end of the night, they were curled together, her head on his shoulder, the rhythm of her breathing lulling him into a momentary peace.

It should be perfect. But when Magali drifted into sleep, her hand resting protectively over her belly, Conrad's smile slowly faded. His eyes stared at the ceiling, wide and haunted. Inside, his heart was a storm. Doctor Sohma's words replayed like a cold whisper he couldn't silence.

The truth he hadn't told Magali. The truth he couldn't tell her. Not with the baby coming. Not when she looked so happy. Not when she needed him strong. His fingers trembled, and he curled them into fists.

"I'm fine," he had said. But he knew that he wasn't. And he knows that he will never would be again. In the dim glow of their living room, Conrad held his wife close and hid the secret that threatened to tear his family apart.

Night settled over the Homestead District with a hush so gentle it felt sacred. The soft glow of streetlamps filtered through the curtains, casting faint amber stripes across the living room where Conrad slept curled beside Magali on the couch. Her head rested on his shoulder, her hand placed instinctively over her stomach awaiting for it to start growing. Her breathing was calm, steady, utterly at peace.

His was not. In the cradle of sleep, Conrad slipped into a dream so vivid it felt like memory.

He saw himself lying on their bed. Still, pale, eyes closed as though merely resting. But there was no rise and fall in his chest. No warmth in his skin. The life had already left him.

Magali knelt beside him, her hair a dark curtain around her face as she clutched at his unresponsive hand. Tears streamed down her cheeks in torrents, soaking into the sheets.

"Conrad… please… wake up…" Her voice cracked, raw with despair. "Please, don't leave us… Conrad, please…"

Her other hand clutched her rounded belly, as though trying to shield their unborn child from the agony breaking her apart. She pressed her forehead to his, trembling.

"Come back… I need you… we need you… Conrad—"

Her voice shattered the dream.

Conrad jolted upright with a violent gasp, chest heaving as though he had been drowning. Sweat slicked his forehead, and his heart hammered wildly against his ribs; too fast, too erratic.

He turned frantically. Magali was there, still asleep, her face relaxed in soft moonlight. Safe. Alive. Unaware of the terror he had just drempt through.

He swallowed hard, wiping at his damp face with trembling hands. He couldn't stay there, not while the nightmare clung to him like a shadow refusing to let go.

Carefully, gently, he slid his arms beneath her and lifted her. She murmured softly but didn't wake as he carried her down the hall. He laid her in their bed, brushed her hair back, and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead.

"I'm right here," he whispered, though even he didn't believe it.

He slipped out into the night. The air was cool against his sweat-damp skin as he walked the quiet streets toward the beach. When he reached the shore, he sank onto the cool tropical sand. The waves lapped rhythmically against the coast, rolling forward and pulling away, forward and away, like a heartbeat trying to steady itself.

Conrad buried his face in his memory hit him, vivid and unrelenting. Doctor Sohma's office, the steady tick of the clock, the sterile smell of disinfectant. The doctor's expression; too calm to be reassuring.

"Conrad," Sohma had said slowly, folding his hands atop the chart. "You're suffering from Takotsubo cardiomyopathy."

Conrad had blinked, confused. "That's— that's the broken heart thing, right? But... that can't be right. I'm not sad. I'm not stressed. I'm happy. I'm married to the love of my life. We're having a baby. I'm—"

"Happiness does not erase grief," Sohma interrupted gently. "Nor does it undo the pain of losing something important."

Conrad shook his head stubbornly. "I'm fine. I'm fine now. I moved on. I have a family. I—"

"Conrad." Sohma's voice sharpened, not unkindly, but with precision. "You can lie to yourself. You can even lie to your wife." He leaned forward, eyes unyielding. "But you cannot lie to me."

The words hit him harder than the diagnosis. Conrad's breath faltered. "I'm not lying…"

"You miss the stage," the doctor said simply. "And suppressing that pain, pretending it never existed has slowed your recovery. Your heart is still fragile. Too fragile. You're holding onto grief you never allowed yourself to feel."

Conrad remembered sitting there, frozen, as the truth cracked open inside him. And now, sitting alone on the moonlit sand, a single tear escaped down his cheek. He hated how right the doctor was. He missed the heat of the lights. He missed the roar of the crowd. He missed the music pulsing through him like a second heartbeat.

He had buried that longing so deep he believed it gone. He sacrificed the stage to protect the woman he loved. But the act of burying it… had only damaged him more. The waves rolled in and out, matching the tremor in his chest.

Sohma's office felt too quiet, the kind of silence that pressed on the lungs. Conrad sat across from him, shoulders squared, still trying to wear his usual grin like armor.

"Well, doc," Conrad said with forced cheer, spreading his hands. "Just write me a prescription for the stage. If performing is what fixes this… then everything'll be fine, right?"

The joke hung in the air like something fragile. Doctor Sohma didn't smile. He didn't even blink. "No," he said quietly. "That's not how it works."

Something in Conrad's expression faltered. Doctor Sohma took his tablet and tapped the MRI scans displayed in front of him, the glowing images of Conrad's damaged heart casting blue light across the room. "Your heart is in critical condition," Sohma continued. "If you get back on that stage… your next performance will be your last."

Conrad stared at him, eyes wide, disbelief flickering like a dying flame. "But... but if I don't get back on that stage, then the— the heartbreak thing will kill me!"

"Exactly," Sohma said, his voice flat, heavy. The doctor took a long breath, folding his hands as if bracing himself to say what he couldn't say in front of Magali. "Conrad… you're dying."

For a moment, everything inside Conrad simply… stopped. The brightness in his eyes; that stubborn, unbreakable optimism he wore like a second skin; drained away. The color seemed to leave his face. Even the air around him felt colder. His lips parted, but no sound came. He swallowed, tried again.

"How long…?" His voice was barely a whisper. "How long do I have?"

Doctor Sohma exhaled, lifting the tablet again, scanning the results as though hoping the numbers had somehow changed.

"You have...," he murmured under his breath. Then, louder: "Based on the scarring… and the way your heart is decaying… I estimate you have about a month."

Conrad didn't move. The words sank in slowly, like ice spreading through his veins. A month, just a handful of weeks. He wouldn't make it to the birth. He wouldn't get to hold his own child or even have a chance to see his or her face.

He stared down at his hands, hands that had once held microphones, that had once reached out to thousands of fans, that had once lifted his wife in laughter and love. Now they trembled.

"This has to be the Idol's Curse…" he whispered.

Sohma blinked. "The what?"

Conrad lifted his eyes, glassy and distant. "It's an old story idols tell each other. When one idol harms another… something takes hold of the injury. A curse. It doesn't matter if they recover, the curse finishes what the attack started. So idols avoid fighting. Always. There's even a law that forbids idols from attacking one another."

Sohma softened, but kept his grounded tone. "Conrad… as a medical professional, I can't believe in curses."

"But?" Conrad asked bitterly.

"But," Sohma admitted, "considering what happened to Khefner… and then to you… I can understand why that story exists."

A long silence settled again. Finally, Conrad lifted his head. "So… what do I do now?"

Sohma looked at him, not with pity, but with sincerity, the kind given only to people whose time truly matters. "Spend the last days of your life with your wife," he said. "With your child, even if not born yet. With your friends. Your fans. Anyone who matters to you."

He hesitated, his voice softening. "Conrad… you don't have long. Use what you have left to say goodbye."

Conrad's breath shuddered as he forced himself to nod, though it felt like the gesture would break him. A month, just one month. And then — nothing.

The night wind carried the salt-sweet scent of the sea, brushing over Conrad's skin as he sat alone on the cool sand. Sweetdance City shimmered behind him, a constellation of neon lights and distant music — but out here, with only the waves and the moon, the world felt unbearably quiet.

Conrad reached into his vest pocket. His fingers closed around smooth, polished wood. The flute. His last refuge… his last way of speaking when words failed him.

He pulled it out slowly, turning it in his hands. Moonlight glinted across its familiar grooves — the small nicks and scratches from years of practice, years of performances, years of comforting himself through sorrow. Every mark was a memory.

He swallowed hard. He had promised himself he wouldn't cry. Not now, not ever.

The vow was older than his marriage, older than his music, older than the stage itself. It was carved into him from childhood, from a night burned so deeply into his memory that even now, decades later, it still felt raw.

He remembered standing in the hallway of their tiny apartment, the floorboards cold beneath his bare feet, watching his father—once a brilliant performer, once the kind of man who lit up every room—sit alone at the kitchen table. The lights were off. The house felt hollow, emptied of warmth. And his father's eyes… Cold, shattered, haunted by too many losses.

He had lost his wife, he had lost his voice, then he lost the stage, the one place he'd always belonged. All that remained was his son — thin, wide-eyed Conrad, clutching his tiny recorder like a toy.

When the boy had stepped closer, lip trembling, tears threatening to spill, his father finally looked up. The gaze was sharp. Not unkind… but broken. A man holding his entire world together with fraying threads.

"Crying fixes nothing," he had said, voice roughened by grief and disuse. "Real men don't do it."

Conrad didn't understand the pain behind those words. He didn't see them as a warning born from heartbreak. He heard them as a command. A rule. A law.

So he buried every tear. Every crack in his heart. Every ache. Instead, he smiled instead, he joked, he played his flute when the sadness became too heavy, letting the music cry for him. Whenever the grief grew too heavy — when idols left the stage, when Khefner died, when everything in him broke — he put the flute to his lips and poured out the tears he refused to shed.

And so, with trembling hands, he lifted the flute and played. The melody flowed out, soft and mournful, the same song he had played for Khefner… the same song he had played on the night he lost him forever. Notes drifted into the wind, slipping between the crash of waves, carrying his heartache into the open sea.

But tonight, the music felt thin, empty, not enough. His breath faltered. The tune cracked. Something inside him caved in. With a sudden, sharp exhale, Conrad rose to his feet. Sand shifted beneath him, cool between his toes. He stared at the flute, the thing that had always been his salvation.

"No more…" The words broke out of him, strangled. Before he could stop himself, he pulled back his arm and hurled the flute into the ocean. It spun end over end through the moonlit air, a tiny glimmer of polished wood — and then it vanished beneath a rising wave with hardly a splash, gone.

Something inside him snapped. A sound tore from his throat — a raw, broken sob — and Conrad collapsed to his knees in the sand. Tears streamed down his face, hot and relentless, as years of suppressed emotion spilled out of him all at once.

He cried like he hadn't cried since childhood. Cried for the life he was losing. For the future he wouldn't see. For the child he'd never get to hold. For Magali, who would wake to an empty bed and wonder where he'd gone.

For the cruel truth that had shattered the bright world he'd tried so hard to build.

His father's words echoed faintly in memory, but now they meant nothing. "Real men don't cry." His father had been wrong. Or his father had been lying to himself, too. Crying didn't make him weak. It made him human.

His sobs shook his whole body. The waves moved toward him, retreating, returning, as if the sea itself listened to his grief. When he finally lifted his head, his breath ragged, his cheeks wet, one thought burned through the despair:

He was losing everything: his life, his future, his stage, his dreams. Each piece of himself seemed to slip through his fingers no matter how tightly he tried to hold on. The diagnosis echoed in his skull like a death knell. A month. A single month before his heart gave out. Before he vanished from the world he loved. Before he left Magali alone to raise their child.

The thought tore at him, hollowing him from the inside out. But even as grief twisted through him like a blade, something else stirred beneath it; quiet, stubborn, burning. He still had one thing left.

It beat in his chest more fiercely than his failing heart: his identity. Even if his life was ending, he was still an idol. Nothing—not time, not illness, not fear—could erase that.

He stood, the ocean breeze whipping against his tear-streaked face, and lifted his chin toward the horizon. The stage had always been his sanctuary, the place where he breathed most freely, where every note and every step became a declaration of who he was.

And he would return to it… even if it killed him. Especially if it killed him.

If he had only one performance left in him, then he would make it count. He would give Sweetdance City one final show. One final memory. One final burst of light before the darkness claimed him.

And no one—not the curse, not the diagnosis, not even Doctor Sohma—would stop him. He would get back on that stage, even if it was the last thing he ever did.