From inside the limo, the port looked like a fever dream engineered for maximum impact and minimal comfort. A queue of matte black cars idled at the drop-off, their windows smoked so dark they reflected her own distorted face back at her. When Asune had cracked a window earlier, the heat had spilled in like a living thing—thick with exhaust, salt, and the sting of ozone. Now, even through the tinted glass, Bri could see the press line: a crush of bodies behind chrome barriers, all aimed at the red carpet that gleamed like a fresh bloodstain under a row of spotlights.

Bri pressed her forehead to the glass and watched the pageant. Her glasses immediately fogged at the edges, but she didn’t move them. She just let the world blur, the way she always did when it was trying too hard.

The ship itself was impossible to ignore. White hull, stacked decks, the name “Erebus” stenciled in gaudy gold letters that caught the sun and ricocheted it back with blinding force. It was almost cartoonishly large, the kind of thing you would draw if someone said, “quick, make a cruise ship” and you had no concept of restraint. It didn’t float so much as loom, like an apartment building that had gotten bored of city life and decided to set sail.

The dock was more carnival than pier: red carpet laid out along the gangway, each foot of it flanked by a different flavor of uniformed staff—some in crisp navy, others in white with gold trim, like chess pieces set up for a game where the only winner was whoever looked best in a hat. A knot of photographers clustered at the VIP lane, all wearing the same black T-shirts and all shouting over each other in at least four languages. Somewhere beneath the adrenaline and the bass of pop music piped in from hidden speakers, Bri could hear the actual ocean, a low grumble that sounded annoyed to be involved.

Inside the limo, Asune was practically vibrating. She had her whole face smashed to the window, her purple hair throwing off static electricity as she listed the arrivals like she was running color commentary at the Olympics.

“Oh my god, that’s the Prime Minister! The Australian one, not the other one.” She pointed, smudging the glass. “And that’s the Peruvian guy they keep showing on the news—look, he’s actually shorter than his translator, I knew it!” Her voice ricocheted around the cabin, alive with delight. “Wait. Wait, is that Kureiji? That’s Kureiji, the pop idol, right?”

Bri squinted, obliging her. The next limo had disgorged a person-sized cloud of perfume and a pair of legs that terminated, somewhere far above, in a white coat and sunglasses the size of dinner plates. The face was as familiar as any billboard in Tokyo: Kureiji Kuriya, the singer-turned-actor who had, last semester, been voted the best supporting actor.

Asune thumped Bri’s arm. “Called it. I told you he would be here. What if he sits at our table? Would you die?” She didn’t wait for a response. “I’d die. We’d both die. Maybe we’ll haunt the ship together.”

More limos. A wall of security parting for a knot of men in suits, the center of which was occupied by a man in pale blue linen and mirrored aviators. He glided down the carpet like he didn’t believe in friction.

“Who’s that?” Bri asked, if only to keep Asune from combusting.

“Saudi prince,” said Asune. “His dad owns, like, half the oil in the world. And three soccer teams. I think he has like twenty wives.” She shot Bri a look. “Maybe he could take on two more. We’re a package deal, baby!”

Before Bri could respond, Asune pointed again. “Oh! And there—that’s the cruise owner. I forget his name, but he’s supposed to be super extra.”

The man in question—short, with a pencil-thin mustache and a violently purple suit—was shaking hands with anyone who made eye contact. He smiled so hard for the cameras it looked painful.

“Marcello… Visconte,” Asune said, finally landing on the name with the reverence usually reserved for saints. “He’s a super billionaire but started as a hacker. It’s his thing.”

Bri said nothing, cataloguing the information with the detachment of someone watching the news in a language she neither understood nor cared about.

The limo inched forward, lurching every few feet. The driver, visible only in the rearview mirror, wore sunglasses so reflective that Bri could see herself and Asune doubled and inverted in each lens. She watched her own face for a second, then quickly looked away.

“Hey,” said Asune. “Are you watching this? It’s like a movie premiere. Do you recognize anyone? You are from Hollywood. Impress me!”

Bri considered the question. She scanned the carpet again, then let her gaze drift to the far end of the arrival zone, where the crowd thinned out and the fanfare was more muted. There, sandwiched between a catering truck and a row of portable toilets, was a white bus littered with blue stars with the words “Down Under Tours” painted along the side in navy blue and red. It had just rumbled to a stop, and already students in matching white blazers and travel-wrinkled black shirts were pouring out, hauling suitcases and looking as out of place as a colony of penguins at a dog show.

She pointed. “I recognize the bus of VIA students.”

Asune followed her finger and made a noise that was half-laugh, half sigh. “Wow. Way to kill the vibe, Bri.”

“I’m just saying,” said Bri, “it’s a strong look. Especially parked next to the prince’s Rolls.”

Asune snorted. “You know what I love about you? You’re allergic to glamour. One day, I’m going to get you to admit something is cool.”

“Not likely,” said Bri, but she allowed herself the faintest of smiles.

Outside, the dock traffic clogged up. The limo stopped, idling. In the window, Bri caught the reflection of the Erebus again, this time stretched and distorted by the curve of the glass. For a second, it looked less like a ship and more like a mirage, something conjured up just for this one moment.

She pressed her thumb and forefinger together, a nervous habit, then turned to Asune. “So what happens now? Do we just… wait for our moment on the red carpet?”

Asune grinned. “Hell yes. We’ll give them a show. You ready to be famous for, like, five seconds?”

“Only if I can wear your sunglasses the entire time,” said Bri.

“Deal,” said Asune. She passed her mirrored silver lenses over. “Will you be able to see without your glasses?” She reached over, adjusted Bri’s collar.

“Don’t worry about that.” Bri just shook her head, but she didn’t pull away.

“Just look expensive,” Asune said with a kissing motion.

Outside, the line of limos kept moving, and somewhere behind them, the bus doors groaned open to the sound of a teacher’s voice yelling for everyone to grab their own bags.

Bri watched the bus until the figures blurred. She closed her eyes, focusing on the limo’s artificial chill against her skin, the faint hum of the engine a single, steady note beneath the chaos. She counted her breaths. In, one-two-three. Out, one-two-three. It was a simple, stupid trick her therapist had taught her. It was just a performance, and she’d survived worse.

She opened her eyes and the ship was still there, waiting.

The bus spit out kids. A couple of the girls made a show of adjusting their hair just in case they got some paparazzi love. The boys, less self-conscious, just grabbed their bags and jostled for the best selfie angle with the ship in the background.

The Diamonds and their gold-plated entourage went first, striding down the bus steps and fanning out across the parking lot, phones already up, conversations already happening, the day already sorted. The Silvers and some Steels came after, blinking against the sunlight, drifting into loose clusters near the bumper like they were waiting for permission to exist in the same space.

Mr. Callum Ejiri—Mr. Cal to the students he coached—was the first adult out. He wore the official white chaperone polo with the Veritas scales under a black jacket, but on him it looked less like a uniform and more like a dare. His build was tall and slim, and he surveyed the scene behind stylish square glasses with the tired focus of someone who’d spent a decade keeping teenagers from dying in creative ways. He barked something about “baggage claim by tier,” and within seconds, one student tripped over her own carry-on and skidded across the dock on one knee.

“Nice,” said Asune, not bothering to lower her voice. “Two minutes in, and we have a casualty.”

Ms. Brindley followed—in her mid-forties, she looked like a librarian. She looked traumatized, like clutching her clipboard so tight the edges dug into her palms. The noise on the bus ride must have driven her crazy. She had on a cardigan and pearls, which Bri found wildly optimistic for an Australian summer. She looked around with wide, movie-heroine eyes, already lost in the spreadsheet logistics of getting eighty-plus students from dock to ship without losing anyone to the sea.

Asune snorted. “You see Brindley? She’s already mentally editing her resignation letter.”

Bri glanced out the window again. The red carpet was still active, new VIPs cycling in every thirty seconds. The gap between their arrival and the bus’s could have been measured in light years: on one end, flashbulbs and handlers with headsets; on the other, a student’s duffel bursting open to spill enough laundry for three people onto the hot tarmac. Mr. Cal was already pointing and shouting for the owner to “take responsibility, not a vacation.”

The hierarchy replayed itself in miniature right there on the dock. Diamonds with rolling designer luggage used them as battering rams to clear a path. Golds, phones already out to record for future TikTok glory, hung back just far enough to not be mistaken for a lower tier. Silvers and Steels gathered with a forced camaraderie, their laughter a little too loud in the shadows of the ship’s hull.

Rebecca Antonetti was hard to miss, even in a sea of plaid. She’d picked the brightest hair dye legally allowed by VIA’s code, and she clung to Mr. Cal like he was the only real adult within a hundred-mile radius. “Do you think the cabins have bidets?” she asked, loud enough for the whole dock. “If not, I’m suing.”

Her cluster of friends, all different shapes of desperate, immediately launched into a debate about European plumbing standards. Bri watched the show from a safe distance, cataloguing faces and alliances, already calculating where she might stand to avoid being noticed by anyone who’d care.

A Gold-tier boy, Houston Gryfen, made a big deal out of checking his reflection in the bus window. When he caught Bri looking, he threw her a finger-gun and winked, as if they were co-conspirators in a plot to overthrow the Diamonds.

“Wow,” said Bri, deadpan. “I think I’ve been recruited.”

Asune rolled her eyes. “That’s Houston. He flirts with his own shadow. If you get bored, just smile at him once and he’ll write you a sonnet.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” said Bri.

The scene was equal parts ridiculous and depressing. As the student herd fanned out, a handful of Golds peeled off toward the far end of the dock, eyeing the VIP arrivals like maybe, just maybe, standing in the right patch of sunlight would make them famous by osmosis.

Bri watched as a few Diamonds and their hangers-on posed for selfies with the Erebus as backdrop. “She caught a glimpse of Mako, the model-pretty senior who was the same height as Bri. Mako, who had once dumped her drink on Bri’s notes and locked her in the bathroom at school—both, of course, “by accident”—was already moving through the crowd with the predatory glide of someone who could always find the best party. Mako ignored the rest of the students, drifting toward the gaggle of photographers, who, bored between actual celebrities, snapped her photo just to pass the time.

The bus continued to disgorge students. Asune pressed her face to the glass and gave a running commentary, equal parts admiration and venom.

“See that? And there—look—Sera and Hideki are together. So sad. Look at her puppy dog eyes. So clueless. “How is it possible that he hasn’t realized she has a crush on him for like ten years.”

Bri’s gaze drifted to the edge of the dock, where the ship’s staff were arranging luggage into neat piles inside insanely large metal crates. The contrast was almost too much: on the one side, chaos and shrieking, on the other, silent efficiency and matching uniforms.

She caught a flash of blue—the VIA banner, unfurled and already wrinkled. A surge of students mobbed the spot, their faces a collage of forced smiles for the first official group selfie. Bri’s gaze snagged on a figure near the back, someone with familiar posture, standing just off-center. Long, wavy red hair. Then the girl turned her head slightly, and Bri saw the glint of glasses. Her own glasses. A cold knot formed in her stomach. It was her, but she was standing right here.

She asked Asune.

“Who’s that redhead?”

Asune squinted. “Who?”

Bri looked back. The spot where the group had been standing was empty. The VIA banner fluttered, alone.

“Do you ever feel like the whole thing is staged?” asked Bri. “Like, none of it is real until someone takes a picture. Or maybe we aren’t real?”

“Whoa baby, where did that come from?” Asune’s mouth curled into a sly smile. “Well. I only feel alive when I’m being photographed,” she said, then ruined it with a soft laugh. “You’re cute when you get philosophical.”

Bri made a face. “I’m serious. It’s like we’re all supposed to be extras in someone else’s documentary.”

Asune leaned in, voice suddenly serious. “You don’t see yourself how others see you. You walk into a room and something shifts—people notice, even when you don’t. You think you’re invisible, Bri, but you’re the one everyone’s watching.”

“Where do you get your material? Don’t quit your day job yet.” She watched the dock, the easy way everyone seemed to know where to stand and what to say, and wondered where she would ever fit. Or if she even wanted to.

The ship’s horn blared, long and deep, making everyone flinch. It was a warning shot, a signal that the real spectacle was about to start.

Bri looked at the looming white hull and wondered if it was too late to swim home. She was tired and probably a little tipsy.

She sat back in the seat and waited for their turn to step into the spotlight.