Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Present Day

“So,” the interviewer says, her smile a little too wide to be genuine, her eyes sharp in the way only someone paid to ask dangerous questions can manage, “five years since The 25th Hour. Five years since you and Khun Aguero Agnis changed the sound of the decade. People are still asking—”

“—if we’ll ever work together again,” Bam finishes for her. His voice is soft, calm—gentle in the way quiet storms are gentle, sounding kind, but it’s not.

“The answer’s no.”

The air stills. Somewhere behind the glass, a red studio light flickers, and the sound engineer suddenly finds a cable to adjust, pretending he can’t feel the tension thickening the room. The interviewer recovers with a quick, polite laugh.

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Grace, why not?” Even disappointment can wear a professional smile when it’s broadcast live. Bam had known she’d ask; they always do. So he smiles—small, tired, practiced.

“It’s quite personal, really.” His fingers trace the rim of his coffee cup, steady despite the tremor in his chest. “But one must admit, some things don’t need to be rebuilt.” A pause. He could sense the curious gaze of the people surrounding him. “Especially if the foundation was a lie.”

The silence that follows hums louder than applause. He sets the cup down gently, the porcelain meeting glass with a soft sound that shouldn’t feel final but does. “If that’s all,” he says, voice low, “I appreciate your time. But I have other places to be.” Then to the camera—one more polite smile, all control and distance, a man who’s long learned that vulnerability doesn’t belong on air.

Was his answer enough? He wonders. It’s enough. It always is. The quote will hit the internet before he even leaves the room.

In the hallway, the lights buzz faintly, the air thick with the smell of burnt coffee and the faint hum of electricity. Bam keeps his head down, his shoulders drawn in; interviews always feel like autopsies, picking apart the parts of him that once made music. When he spots Ha Jinsung waiting near the end of the corridor, leaning casually against the wall, his guard slips for just a moment. “Master Jinsung,” he greets softly.

The older man studies him—sharp gaze softened by something like concern. “Viole, you looked tense in there. Should I call your driver to pick you up? We can always make adjustments to the schedule.”

“No need,” Bam assuringly says, forcing a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ll take a walk before the meeting.” Jinsung sighs, adjusting the cuff of his coat. “Don’t stray too far,” he warns, but they both know that’s what Bam does best. “I won't, but even if I do, I’ll still be on schedule.” And with a smile, Bam left.

⁕

Outside, Seoul hums beneath a low, cold sky. The streets gleam with rain, streetlights stretching into long ribbons of gold on the wet asphalt. Bam pulls his hood up, his breath fogging the air as he starts walking. No music. No earbuds. Just the rhythm of his footsteps, the pulse of the city. He’s learned to live in quiet since the split; silence, after all, is easier than explaining the kind of grief that never makes the news.

A car passes, its windows half-open, radio spilling into the night. He catches it mid-chorus and freezes. “Tell me, tell me—if I fall, would you climb back down for me?” After all, until now, the impact of it is still strong as of the day the song was released. He could remember the lyrics, the tune. The voices clear as day; it haunts him.

But the voice isn’t his anymore. It belongs to everyone else now—remixed, replayed, hollowed out by familiarity—but still it sounds like memory. Bam exhales, a soft, broken laugh swallowed by the rain. The streetlight above him flickers, catching the exhaustion beneath his eyes, the ghost of something still unresolved. Five years, he thinks, and the silence still feels like a song that never finished.

Eight years ago, Hongdae.

The rain in Hongdae never sounds like rain anywhere else. It hums against the glass, soft but relentless, the kind of rhythm that seeps under your skin until your pulse begins to mimic it. The street outside is a watercolor—shop signs bleeding color into puddles, umbrellas blooming like bruised flowers, everything shivering in motion. Inside the club, the air hangs thick with the scent of dust, beer, and burnt cables. The walls sweat sound.

Khun Aguero Agnis sits at the far end of the bar, fingers wrapped around a glass he has no intention of drinking from. The liquid catches the stage lights and splits them into fragments—amber, gold, the faintest trace of blue. The crowd around him hums like static, restless with the small, hungry hope that tonight they might witness something worth remembering. Khun doesn’t share their optimism. He’s been to too many of these, seen too many almost-talents drown in their own ambition.

He shouldn’t even be here, or he thinks he shouldn’t. Yuri had texted him the address at an ungodly hour—come see this kid; he’ll either save music or destroy it—and because Yuri Jahad has a talent for catastrophes worth watching, he came, well not like he has any other choice but to do so anyway. Thus, he told himself it was boredom, professional curiosity, but as he glances at the empty stage lit by flickering neon, he knows it’s something else. Something closer to instinct, the one he still trusts even when it hurts him.

When the lights dim, the noise thins to a hush. The crowd doesn’t know why they’re quiet yet, only that they should be. A boy steps onto the stage—a shape cut out of the dark, slim shoulders and hesitant posture, a guitar hanging from his shoulder like an apology. He looks out into the room as if trying to remember why he’s here at all. Someone from the back calls his name—Bam!—and the sound folds itself into the silence, fragile, almost reverent.

Only then does Khun notice he isn’t alone on stage.

There are four of them, a constellation of mismatched energies orbiting a single center. The girl behind the keyboard—Elaine, if the sticker on her case is anything to go by—moves with the easy precision of someone who’s played in too many cheap bars to flinch at broken keys. Her hair catches the stage light in flickers of copper, eyes narrowed, calculating, more conductor than accompanist.

Beside her, a tall, wiry boy tunes his bass by ear—Hockney, apparently. His shirt is half-painted, half-worn, a sketchbook lying open on an amp with something half-finished on the page: a swirl of lines that might be the crowd, or maybe just noise given form. There’s a cigarette tucked behind his ear that never gets lit. He hums to himself, smiling faintly, as though the music already exists and the rest of them are just trying to find it.

The drummer—Wangnan, according to the logo scrawled across his snare—is pure restlessness. He spins a stick through his fingers, knocks out a rhythm on his knee, talks through his grin like he’s allergic to silence. Even from where Khun sits, he can feel it: that irrepressible, messy joy that makes songs sound bigger than they are.

And then there’s the boy in the middle. Bam.

No stage presence to speak of, none of that trained charisma that’s supposed to hook a crowd. But he stands there like the space around him is rearranging itself to make room. There’s something unnervingly still about him, the quiet that comes before a storm, a gravity the others orbit without even knowing it.

Above them, a cracked neon sign buzzes faintly: Sweet and Sour.

It’s handwritten, probably by Wangnan, the paint uneven and peeling at the edges. The name is questionable for his tastes but it fits—half warmth, half ache.

Khun’s lips twitch despite himself. “Of course,” he murmurs under his breath despite the dissatisfaction upon reading the sign, “They’d call themselves that.”

The attention of the crowd settles, waiting. The stage feels too small for whatever’s about to happen, and Khun realizes, with a reluctant flicker of curiosity, that maybe Yuri hadn’t been exaggerating this time.

Bam adjusts the mic. Clears his throat. The first chord is shy. The second lands heavy with promise. Then he starts to sing.

It isn’t perfect. The first note wavers, just shy of the right pitch, but he doesn’t panic. He catches it midair, bends it back into the melody like a craftsman smoothing a flaw in the wood. His voice isn’t large enough to fill the room; it doesn’t need to be. It leans into the air, coaxing it closer, softer, until every conversation dies mid-sentence and even the neon seems to dim.

The timbre of it—gentle, almost boyish—has a weight that shouldn’t exist. There’s something raw in the way he stretches a syllable, something trembling and alive. The lyrics are simple, unguarded; they reach out rather than perform.

So tell me—If I climb any higher,

Will you still know my name?

The line lands like a blade dipped in honey.

Khun feels it before he understands it, a faint tightening beneath his ribs. He hates the way it finds him, the way it insists on meaning. He’s produced hundreds of voices—polished, trained, sculpted until every breath sits perfectly on the beat—but this one sounds like a secret you were never meant to hear. It’s imperfect, too alive, carrying the kind of sincerity that makes people flinch because it leaves them nowhere to hide.

When the air gets thin and the stars all sound the same,

If the light I’m chasing burns me just the same,

Would you call me back to earth,

Or would you watch me fade?

He watches the boy close his eyes on the chorus, sees his fingers tremble just once before steadying. The music has faded into something raw—an unguarded truth spilling into the room. Every word lands with the intimacy of someone whispering a truth they shouldn’t have said out loud.

Khun tells himself it’s nothing special. Just another young dreamer with a guitar and a song about falling. But his hand tightens unconsciously around the glass. Somewhere deep in his chest, a quiet click—recognition or danger, he can’t tell.

By the time the last note fades, the room has forgotten to breathe. For a heartbeat, the silence is complete, then applause bursts out, messy, too loud, as though everyone’s trying to prove they were there for it. The boy bows awkwardly, hair falling into his eyes, and when he looks up, he smiles; quick, startled, the expression of someone who isn’t used to being seen.

Khun doesn’t clap. He sits very still, eyes fixed on the stage, as if the world might rearrange itself around that voice. The drink in front of him has gone untouched; condensation trails down the glass and gathers in a small pool beneath it.

Bam leans toward the mic, voice still a little breathless. “We’re—uh—Sweet and Sour,” he nervously says, almost like he’s apologizing for the name. “I’m Bam. On the drums is Wangnan. That’s Elaine on keyboard, and Hockney on bass.” He glances toward each of them as he speaks, and they smile back—small, private acknowledgments between people who have shared too many cheap dinners and half-written songs.

The crowd cheers again, warmer this time, the kind of sound that comes from liking someone before you know why.

Bam laughs softly, the sound low and genuine. “Thanks for listening,” he adds, rubbing the back of his neck. “We’ve got one more song before the night eats us alive.” The line isn’t rehearsed—it just slips out, and the audience laughs with him, even though they don’t know what he could possibly mean.

He looks up once more, gaze sweeping across the room, eyes bright under the stage lights. For a second—barely a breath—his expression steadies, and Khun can see what he’ll become someday: someone the world will either worship or destroy.

Bam lets the laughter fade before glancing back at his bandmates. Elaine nods; Hockney flicks ash from his unlit cigarette; Wangnan’s sticks click once, twice. A small pulse of silence, the kind that feels like a held breath.

Then Bam starts the next song.

It isn’t the one they rehearsed. Even the band looks at him, startled—but he just gives a small shake of his head and keeps playing. The first notes crawl out of the guitar low and deliberate, a rhythm that feels like heartbeat and warning both. The air changes; the room leans in.

His voice follows—smokier now, lower in his chest, dragging over the words like they’re secrets he shouldn’t be saying out loud.

You said, don’t fall in love with the echo,

But I loved the way it stayed.

I loved how your silence filled the room,

Like a song I almost made.

The crowd stills, uneasy. Elaine catches the key and follows, her chords slow, almost predatory, a shimmer of sound that hums against the skin. Hockney adds a bass line that prowls rather than supports. Wangnan’s drumming turns delicate, the rhythm built from restraint instead of release.

“Come closer,” Bam breathes into the mic,

“Let me pretend we’re something holy—

Just long enough to ruin it again.”

It’s not sweet, not hopeful. It’s beautiful in the way bruises are: dark, tender, too real. The crowd stops pretending to chatter; even the clinking of glasses fades. Somewhere in the corner a neon light flickers, half alive, painting everything in red and blue.

Khun goes perfectly still. This isn’t the nervous boy from before. This is someone entirely different—someone dangerous. Every instinct in him that knows music, that knows what it means to build a career, starts whispering that this is the moment people fall in love for the wrong reasons. He can’t look away. The way Bam leans into the mic, the way his mouth barely moves around the words—it’s less performance, more of a truthful confession. A line from the chorus hangs in the air, the melody bending like smoke:

“If you want the truth, come take it.

I won’t say no.

I never do.”

The line lands like a touch he didn’t see coming. The song slides between tempos, dizzy and unsteady, ending not with a chord but with silence—one that lingers too long to feel safe.

Bam doesn’t bow this time. He exhales into the mic, eyes still half-lidded, a faint smile ghosting at the corner of his mouth. “Thanks for staying,” he murmurs, voice rough. “That one’s called Habit.” For a moment, no one claps. Then the room erupts—louder than before, messier, a little drunk on something they can’t name. Khun remains motionless, his pulse too quick. Habit. The word fits. It feels like something he’s already developing.

He pushes the untouched drink away, condensation smearing across the bar. The sound of the crowd fades into the hum of rain outside, but the lyrics keep replaying in his head—

Come closer. Let me pretend we’re something holy.

He knows already that this isn’t the last time he’ll hear that voice.

And that, somehow, is the problem.

Then, a sudden ring cuts through the loud cheers of the audience — sharp, insistent, jarring.

Khun blinks, as if pulled back to reality, and looks down at his phone. The screen glows pale blue in the dark: Yuri Jahad.

Of course.

She always calls when she shouldn’t — when the wound is still fresh, when the thought is still unspoken. Always at the moment he’s least capable of pretending indifference. He hesitates for a heartbeat, then answers. “You have a habit,” he says, voice smooth but quieter than usual, “of calling in the middle of disasters.”

There’s laughter on the other end, it was low, sharp, the kind that sounds like it’s smiling even when it’s not. “So you saw him.”

Khun’s eyes flick back to the club. Through the rain-smeared glass, he can still see fragments of movement— Wangnan stacking drums, Elaine wrapping cables, Hockney sketching idly on an amp case. And in the middle of them all, Bam.

The boy is laughing at something, shoulders loose, but the sound doesn’t reach his eyes. It never does.

“I saw him,” Khun replies. He shifts the phone to his other ear, the faint static of traffic filling the pause between them. “He’s raw. And too reckless. He doesn’t even know what he’s holding yet. He’ll drown before he learns how to breathe.”

On the other end, Yuri hums softly thoughtfully, not mocking this time. “Then teach him.”

Khun exhales through his nose, a ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You make it sound simple.”

“It’s never simple with the ones who matter,” she says. Her tone drops lower, the amusement gone now. “Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it.”

He doesn’t answer right away. The rain in the background has thickened, drumming against the awning, catching the neon in small explosions of color. His reflection shivers in the puddles by his feet.

Bam steps out of the club then, the door swinging open behind him, leaking light and laughter into the dark. His hood is pulled up, guitar case slung over his shoulder. The rest of the band trails behind, arguing good-naturedly about something — Wangnan’s voice bright, Elaine rolling her eyes, Hockney’s grin barely visible beneath the streetlight.

Bam lingers at the edge of the awning. For a moment, his gaze lifts — across the street, through the rain — and lands on Khun.

A single glance. No recognition, just… stillness. Like he senses he’s being watched.

Khun doesn’t move. Neither does he. The space between them feels stretched, suspended. Then Bam looks away, tugging his hood tighter as he steps into the streetlight and disappears down the corner.

“Khun?” Yuri’s voice crackles through the line. “Still there?”

He draws in a slow breath, eyes fixed on where Bam had been standing seconds ago. “You were right.”

“I usually am,” she replies, amusement back in her tone. “But about what, exactly?”

Khun’s voice drops, quiet but weighted, like he’s choosing each word with surgical care.

“That boy doesn’t just sing,” he says. “He confesses. Every note drags you under before you realize you’ve stopped breathing.”

He pauses for a second, thumb tracing the edge of his phone. “Yuri… I’ve heard talent before. But I’ve never heard someone sound like they were praying for their own damnation—and meaning every word.”

There’s a silence on the line, fragile and long enough for the rain to fill it. Then Yuri’s voice comes, softer than he expects.

“And you’ve already followed, haven’t you?”

Khun doesn’t answer. The rain patters against the pavement, relentless, unbothered. The question hangs there between them—half accusation, half prophecy—until it finally dissolves into static. He ended the call before he could think better of it. The line dies with a small click that sounds too final.

He stands there for a while, phone still in his hand, the night pressing close. The street smells of wet concrete and smoke. Inside the club, the staff have started sweeping the floor, wiping away the night.

He looks at his reflection in the dark window — the faint outline of a man who’s seen too many voices burn bright and collapse, who swore he’d never chase another one down.

And yet—

“That kind of voice,” Khun murmurs to himself, low enough the rain almost swallows it, “it doesn’t save people. It ruins them. Slowly, beautifully.”

The words hang in the air a moment longer, and then they’re gone. He pockets his phone, pulls his hood up, and walks into the rain. The city swallows him whole, but the echo of that song stays exactly like a pulse that isn’t his own.

⁕

The rain had softened by the time they reached the alley behind the club, but the world still smelled like thunder. The air was thick with wet concrete and cigarette smoke, the kind that clung to clothes and lingered long after you’d gone home. Wangnan was the first to speak, of course.

“Did you see that crowd?” he laughed, tossing his sticks into his backpack. “I swear that one guy in the front was crying—actual tears, like ugly-crying.”

Elaine shot him a look as she wrapped a cable around her arm. “You say that after every set.”

“This time I mean it.”

“You meant it last time too.”

“That’s because last time he was crying,” Hockney said without looking up from his sketchbook. His pencil moved lightly, drawing something that looked suspiciously like the stage from an hour ago— all light and shadows, the ghost of a boy holding a guitar.

Bam leaned against the damp brick wall, hood half-pulled up, watching the rain drip down the edges of the awning. His hair clung to his forehead; his hands still buzzed with the memory of strings and sweat. The sound of the second song —Habit— lingered in his bones like heat that wouldn’t fade.

He hadn’t planned to play it. He wasn’t even sure why he did. The chords had just... found him.

Maybe that was the problem, the song had always been meant for one person, and he’d sung it in front of a room full of strangers instead.

Elaine noticed his silence. She always did. “You okay?” she asked, voice low enough not to draw the others.

He nodded. “Yeah. Just tired.”

She didn’t press. Just gave him that knowing half-smile — the one that said you’re lying but I won’t make you say it out loud.

Wangnan clapped him on the shoulder. “Tired? Dude, we killed it. We’re practically famous now.”

“Yeah,” Bam said softly, a smile ghosting over his lips. “Famous.” The word tasted strange, like something too bright to look at directly, too much for a word to take in.

Hockney looked up from his sketchpad. “You know,” he said, squinting at Bam, “you were different tonight.”

“Different how?”

“Like you weren’t singing to anyone,” Hockney said slowly. “You were singing at someone. Like they’d hear it no matter where they were.”

The others laughed it off, but Elaine’s gaze lingered. She knew that tone; that sharp edge that crept into Bam’s music when something was bleeding underneath it.

They walked together to the main street, their laughter echoing off wet walls, breaking the silence into pieces. The neon lights reflected in puddles, cutting their faces into shards of color— red, blue, violet. For a while, they looked like a band from someone else’s dream.

When they reached the crosswalk, Wangnan raised his arm to hail a cab, yelling something about ramen with sweet and sour pork along with it. Elaine argued they were broke; Hockney countered that art required carbs. Bam stood a little apart, head tilted toward the sky. The rain had thinned into mist, blurring the city’s edges.

Somewhere across the street, he thought he saw someone standing under a flickering sign— a tall figure, hood drawn, unmoving. But when he blinked, there was nothing. Just the hum of traffic, and the ghost of a melody that hadn’t finished playing.

He told himself it was nothing.

But as they piled into the cab, Bam turned once more toward the glass. The city slipped by in fragments — windows glowing gold, people running through the rain, the reflections of lives he’d never live. His fingers tapped restlessly on his knee, keeping time to a song only he could hear.

Elaine glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “That new song,” she said quietly. “What was it called again?”

“Habit.”

Her eyes met his. “It didn’t sound like a habit. It sounded like a wound.”

He didn’t answer. Outside, the rain began to fall harder again, each drop blurring the city until it looked almost kind.

⁕

The cab dropped him off two blocks from his apartment, a cracked building wedged between a laundromat and a 24-hour convenience store that always smelled faintly of rain and cheap ramen. The others had peeled off one by one, they all had different places to go after the gig, Bam would be the only one left in the apartment. Wangnan went toward the bus stop, Elaine toward the train line, Hockney vanishing down some side street with his sketchbook held under his jacket like a relic. Bam stood for a moment in front of the convenience store, watching the reflection of the city ripple across the wet asphalt. The air was cold enough to bite, but he didn’t go in. Not yet.

He fished his phone from his pocket. The screen was cracked, a web of fractures catching the streetlight. One unread message blinked at the top of the screen.

He already knew who it was from before he opened it.

> Rachel:

Heard you played again tonight.

Did they love you for it this time?

He stared at the words for a long time, thumb hovering above the screen. The rain hissed softly against the awning, steady and familiar.

> Bam:

They clapped.

He typed it, then deleted it. Typed again. Deleted that too. There were a hundred things he could have said, but all of them were wrong. Finally, he locked the screen and shoved the phone back into his pocket.

The stairs creaked under his weight as he climbed. The hallway smelled faintly of cigarettes and boiled cabbage; the fluorescent light overhead flickered like a dying heartbeat. When he reached his door, he hesitated again but just long enough to feel the weight of the night catch up to him.

Inside, the apartment was small and half-dark, walls lined with the quiet clutter of a life lived between gigs: coiled cables, scattered lyric sheets, a mug that once held coffee and now held guitar picks.

He didn’t bother with the lights.

He set his guitar down by the window, leaned his forehead against the cool glass, and looked out at the rain-smeared city. From here, Seoul looked almost gentle; like something trying too hard to be forgiven.

The echo of his song still lingered in his chest. Come closer, let me pretend we’re something holy—just long enough to ruin it again.

He’d written that line years ago.

He thought he’d buried it with her.

The sound of the rain thickened, tapping against the window in uneven rhythm. Somewhere below, a car passed, tires hissing through puddles.

Bam closed his eyes. The night pressed in.

He could almost hear her voice — soft, mocking, the way it used to cut through the dark.

You keep chasing stars, Bam. But you were never built for the fall.

He exhaled slowly, fingers brushing against the glass. The cold bit at his skin, anchoring him back to the present. Outside, a neon sign across the street blinked in slow intervals — blue, red, blue again. Each pulse of light painted his reflection in shifting colors. For a heartbeat, he thought he saw someone else there — a silhouette taller, sharper, watching from somewhere beyond the glass.

He blinked, and it was gone.

He laughed quietly to himself, shaking his head. “Losing it,” he muttered.

But even as he said it, he reached for his phone again, thumb hovering over Rachel’s name.

Then he scrolled past it — down to the voice memo app, the one he’d left open during the show.

There it was.

Sweet and Sour — Hongdae Set (Live).

He pressed play.

The room filled with the ghost of his own voice. Not the one he remembered singing, but something rawer, almost foreign. Every imperfection was there — every breath, every tremor. It sounded like someone confessing through a locked door.

When the chorus came, he almost couldn’t stand it.

If you want the truth, come take it,

I won’t say no,

I never do.

He turned off the recording halfway through, chest too tight. The silence that followed felt heavier than sound. He sat there for a long time, staring at the dark window, the reflection that looked back at him didn’t seem like his own anymore.

Finally, he whispered, “Rachel… you’d hate it, wouldn’t you?”

The words hung in the air, unanswered.

He picked up his guitar again, thumb brushing the strings once, absently.

The note hung in the air, it was low, tired, beautiful even, and for a moment it felt like the city was listening to him. The vibration shivered against the glass, slipping out into the rain, carried somewhere beyond reach.

Across Seoul, high above the restless lights, that same sound found its echo.

In a different apartment, Khun Aguero Agnis sat in front of a pair of old studio monitors, the glow of the waveform pulsing faintly on his screen. The same song. The same breath. The same quiet wound stitched into melody.

Neither of them knew why they couldn’t turn it off.

Neither of them slept.

Fortunately for Khun, someone from the Tower—one of Jahad Entertainment’s junior scouts—had been at the bar that night. The kid had cornered him at the exit, eyes wide and voice bright with adrenaline, pressing a flash drive into his hand before Khun could protest.

“You’ll want this, sir. Recorded the whole set. He’s... different.”

Khun hadn’t planned to listen again. He’d shoved the drive into his pocket, forgotten it on the ride home, convinced himself that curiosity was beneath him.

But now—three hours later—it was already plugged into his console, the waveform pulsing faintly across the screen like a living thing. The room was dark, the only light a faint blue glow washing across stacks of unopened demo files. He told himself it was work. That he was simply assessing the boy’s range, his phrasing, his control.But when the first breath of Bam’s voice slipped through the speakers, every rational thought fell away.

The recording wasn’t clean; the mic had picked up too much air, too much distance. Yet somehow that made it worse—more human, more intimate. The boy’s voice cracked in places, broke in others, like it wasn’t built to hold the weight it carried.

Khun leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. His reflection in the glass of the monitor looked almost unfamiliar. His eyes sharper, darker, alive in a way he didn’t like.

He replayed the verse once. Then again.

And again.

The same imperfections hit differently each time.

The same raw tremor in his throat, the same hesitation before the chorus.

It wasn’t perfection that drew him in. It was honesty. The kind that stripped you bare without asking permission.

He’d spent years teaching singers to pretend—to bleed beautifully, safely, for an audience that would clap at the right time and go home unscarred. But, this wasn’t pretending. This was something reckless. Something he couldn’t control.

Bam’s voice filled the apartment, rough and unfiltered:

Come closer, let me pretend we’re something holy—just long enough to ruin it again.

Khun exhaled, low, like the words had been meant for him.

He scrubbed back and listened again.

And again.

By the fifth repeat, the song had dug under his skin.

He sat back, dragging a hand through his hair. Outside, the rain had stopped, but the city still gleamed like it hadn’t realized it was supposed to rest.

He told himself he’d delete the file by morning. That it was nothing, but even as he reached for the keyboard, his hand stilled halfway. He stared at the screen, the waveform frozen mid-breath. The silence that followed was too clean, too final.

“You shouldn’t sing like that,” Khun murmured to no one, his voice low and tired. “Someone will hear you, and they won’t be able to stop.”

The rain began again, faint and uneven, tapping against the window like the start of another song.

And somewhere across the city, Bam’s guitar answered.

Khun leaned back in his chair, eyes half-lidded, the glow from the monitor spilling faint light across his face. The apartment was too quiet. It always was. Soundproofed walls, heavy curtains, double-paned glass that is all designed to keep the world out.

Tonight, though, he wished it wouldn’t.

He pressed play again. The file restarted, the same hum of the crowd, the same stutter of feedback before the mic caught his breath.

You said, don’t fall in love with the echo…

Khun’s fingers drummed against his knee, a habit he’d picked up years ago when he was still learning how to listen. Really listen.

It wasn’t the melody that hooked him— that was simple, even primitive. It wasn’t the structure either; any first-year composer could have written it. But rather it was the silence between the notes. The way the air shifted when Bam sang, like even the imperfections were deliberate.

He scrubbed back again, isolating one second of sound, the inhale before the second chorus. A breath too fast, too heavy.

He amplified it. Listened again.

There. In that one inhale, you could hear it: fear, longing, maybe guilt. He didn’t know which, and that irritated him.

Khun had built his career on understanding people faster than they understood themselves. That was his talent; cutting through the noise to find the pattern. But this boy’s voice didn’t fit any pattern. It broke rhythm, broke expectation, broke order.

And Khun hated chaos.

He turned the volume down, then up again, chasing that moment where the song tilted between vulnerability and control. His eyes burned from the light, but he didn’t look away.

“Reckless,” he muttered under his breath, almost fondly. “You don’t even know what you’re doing, do you?”

He glanced down at the flash drive; cheap plastic, scuffed, a piece of trash by itself— and yet, somehow, it felt heavier than anything else in the room.

On his desk, beneath a stack of demo folders, was a framed photo, faded, a little too neat for how old it was. A younger Khun, onstage beside Maria and Ran, the three of them mid-performance, frozen in a rare moment of noise and light.

He looked happy then. Or maybe he just looked louder.

He reached over, turned the frame face down.

When the final chord of “Habit” played through the speakers, Khun didn’t realize he was holding his breath until the silence after felt like drowning.

He leaned forward again, elbows on the desk, hand over his mouth, eyes fixed on the monitor.

Come closer, the voice whispered,

Let me pretend we’re something holy…

Khun shut his eyes. He could still hear it. It didn’t sound like a song anymore because it really sounded like a confession. Then, somewhere inside him, something sharp and quiet began to stir— the dangerous part that wanted to see how far a voice like that could fall before it broke.

He reached for his notebook, flipping it open to a blank page. His handwriting was neat, mechanical. He wrote only two words:

Twenty-Fifth Bam.

He stared at the name for a moment. It felt like a puzzle he’d already begun solving.

Another name joined it, written smaller beneath:

Sweet and Sour — Hongdae.

He closed the notebook, slid it aside, and reached for his phone.

The message to Yuri was short.

You were right.

I’ll take him.

He didn’t send it. Not yet.

Instead, he stood and crossed to the window. The rain had softened to a mist, coating the city in a faint silver haze. From up here, the streets looked distant, almost unreal, like a song you could hum but never quite remember the words to.

His reflection looked back at him; pale, sharp-edged, eyes caught in a half-light that didn’t belong to anyone.

He thought of Bam again earlier. The way he’d stood under the awning, soaked and unbothered, his hood pulled low but his eyes startlingly open.

That same calm before a storm.

That same gravity.

Khun’s hand tightened on the window frame.

“Strange,” Khun murmured to himself. “How something so fragile can sound like it already knows it’s going to break.”

He stayed there until the city began to blur. Until the gray of dawn pressed faintly at the horizon and the streetlights flickered out one by one.

Only then did he return to his desk, click the monitor off, and let the silence finally have him.

The last thing he saw before the screen went dark was the file name blinking in the corner —

Sweet_and_Sour_Hongdae_Live.mp3.

And at that moment, Khun knew he wouldn’t be able to delete it.

Not tomorrow.

Not ever.

He stared at the dark monitor for a while, the silence between each breath louder than the rain outside. The apartment was cold, the kind of cold that made thought feel sharper. He should sleep, or at least try to. Instead, he sat back in the chair, eyes unfocused, the city’s distant hum threading itself through the walls.

That was when the phone buzzed against the desk.

Khun blinked, glanced down. The name flashing across the screen almost made him laugh.

Maschenny.

Of course.

He hesitated for a second before answering. “It’s three in the morning,” he said, voice rougher than he meant it to be.

Maschenny’s tone came through like static wrapped in silk. “That’s when people with ambition are awake, little brother. Or is insomnia finally all you’ve got left?”

Khun leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “You always call when you already know the answer.”

A small chuckle. “I heard you were seen at some hole-in-the-wall in Hongdae tonight. That’s not your usual kind of hunting ground. Boredom, or curiosity?”

“Neither,” Khun said. “I was invited.”

“Ah, Yuri,” she guessed immediately, her amusement curling at the edges. “You and her always did share an appetite for trouble.” A pause, deliberate. “So? Did you find something worth losing sleep over?”

He didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched thin between them, filled only by the soft hum of the city through his window. On the desk, the flash drive still glinted faintly under the monitor’s dying light.

Finally, he said, “Maybe.”

Maschenny laughed—a low, elegant sound that never reached her eyes, even through the phone. “Be careful, Aguero. Every time you say maybe, it costs you more than you think. You’re not as immune as you pretend to be.”

He let her words hang, unchallenged. “You sound worried.”

“I sound entertained,” she corrected. “But I do worry, a little. You’ve always had a weakness for broken things that look like art.”

Khun’s mouth curved into something too faint to be a smile. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

“Oh, please,” she said lightly. “You forget I’ve seen you work. The moment you hear a voice that makes you feel something, you start thinking you can fix it. Mold it. Save it. But art like that doesn’t get saved, Aguero—it devours.”

He glanced toward the window, the faint gray edge of dawn bleeding into the skyline. “Then maybe I’ll let it,” he said quietly.

A silence followed, long enough that he thought she might’ve hung up. Then:

“You always were dramatic.” Her voice softened, but only slightly. “Just don’t drag the rest of the family into another one of your rescues. The Khuns can only handle so many of your saints.”

The line clicked dead before he could reply.

Khun stared at the phone for a long time, Maschenny’s voice still echoing in his ears. Outside, the sky was beginning to pale.

He turned the monitor back on.

The waveform appeared again. That single breath before the chorus. The crack in the voice.

He hit play.

Come closer,

Let me pretend we’re something holy

just long enough to ruin it again.

Khun exhaled slowly, eyes fixed on nothing. “Why do you sing like someone who’s already lost,” he murmured. “And the worst part is, everyone listening wants to lose with you.”

The city beyond the window trembled faintly under the first light of morning.

And Khun stayed exactly where he was—awake, unblinking, listening as if the night still hadn’t ended. He should’ve gone to bed. He should’ve shut it all down, the song, the rain, the voice still echoing somewhere in the back of his skull. But the truth was simple, if unspoken: he didn’t want to.

He sat back down, the chair creaking softly beneath him, and clicked the console awake. The file name blinked in the corner — Sweet_and_Sour_Hongdae_Live.mp3 — as if mocking him. He hovered over it, then minimized the window instead.

Old habits died slower than most people.

On instinct, he opened another folder, they were archived auditions, old projects, voices he’d polished until they gleamed too bright to be real. One name after another. Perfect pitch, perfect tone, perfect nothing. Each file started to sound the same after a while, a loop of ghosts with microphones.

He closed it. The silence afterward was heavy, almost accusatory.

His phone buzzed once on the desk, it was a message from Jahad Entertainment’s internal group chat. A press release draft. Yuri Jahad spotted at local venues scouting independent acts. Khun almost smiled. She was already moving.

He typed a short reply to no one in particular:

> Don’t get too comfortable.

I’ll handle this one.

He hit send before he could second-guess it.

Outside, dawn was smudging into morning. The city’s pulse began to quicken— car engines starting, shutters rolling open, the distant thrum of routine returning to life. But for Khun, it still felt like night.

He reached for his coffee mug and found it empty. Cold. He refilled it anyway, the sound of water against ceramic echoing too loudly in the quiet.

Then, without thinking, he opened his notes again. The two words stared back at him:

Twenty-Fifth Bam.

He added a line beneath it, the ink dragging slightly as his hand hesitated:

Untrained. Unaware. Potentially dangerous.

Another line followed after a beat.

Don’t let this one disappear.

He stared at the words for a long moment, the ink still fresh on the page; he wasn’t sure why he wrote it. Maybe instinct. Maybe something closer to guilt.

Khun had seen too many voices like that—bright, trembling things that burned out before anyone knew what they were worth. And yet, this one felt different.

Or maybe he just wanted it to be.

He closed the notebook and exhaled, the morning light spilling across his desk in fractured streaks. The city outside looked washed clean, its rooftops gleaming in soft silver, like the world had been forgiven overnight.

But he knew better. Calm like this was never peace. It was the inhale before something broke.

Khun reached for the flash drive again, rolling it between his fingers. The plastic was cheap, ordinary, yet it carried a gravity that unsettled him. Every choice began like this—something small, unremarkable, easy to dismiss. Until it wasn’t.

He slipped it into his pocket, pushed back from the desk, and stood. The light hit his face as he crossed the room, catching on the faint blue of his eyes.

It was time to move— time to do work.

Not the kind that paid.

The kind that changed everything.

And as he stepped out into the thinning rain, one thought lingered like a quiet refrain:

Some voices don’t wait to be found. They find you first.

⁕

The building rose out of the skyline like something carved from light and arrogance. All glass, all sharp lines, all the quiet hum of power. Inside, the lobby buzzed with movement—trainees rushing between evaluations, producers clutching tablets, interns carrying coffee like offerings. Every sound was softened by the acoustic panels and polished floors, but the tension beneath it was unmistakable.

Khun Aguero Agnis moved through it like a blade through silk.

He didn’t rush; he never did. The world bent to his pace.

A few heads turned as he passed—whispers trailing behind him, eyes full of that familiar mix of awe and resentment. He’d earned that reputation early: the producer who could turn ruin into brilliance, or brilliance into ruin, depending on his mood. The one who never smiled unless it meant something.

He took the elevator to the 47th floor, where the higher offices were quiet, cold, and expensive enough to feel detached from the rest of the building.

Inside, his office was all clean symmetry—no clutter, no warmth. The kind of room that said everything here is intentional.

Khun dropped his coat over the back of a chair and set the flash drive on his desk like evidence.

He stared at it for a moment before sliding it into the console.

The screen flickered to life.

The same waveform.

The same voice.

He didn’t hit play—not yet.

“Sir?”

A knock. The door cracked open, revealing Hatz, standing with a folder under his arm, looking both professional and deeply unimpressed. He’d worked with Khun long enough to recognize the signs of obsession when they started to form.

“You’re early,” Hatz said flatly. “Which usually means you’ve found something dangerous,”

Khun smirked, just slightly. “Dangerous is subjective.”

“Not when it’s you,” Hatz replied. He dropped the folder on the desk. “That’s the week’s lineup. Jahad wants the next showcase finalized by Friday.”

Khun didn’t look at it. His gaze stayed fixed on the monitor, on the file that still read Sweet_and_Sour_Hongdae_Live.mp3.

“I’ll handle it,” he said simply.

Hatz followed his gaze. “Another one of your charity cases?”

“Maybe,” Khun said, voice mild but unreadable.

Hatz sighed. “Yuri’s involved, isn’t she?”

Khun’s silence was answer enough.

The older man rubbed a hand over his face. “God help us.” Then, more quietly, as if he couldn’t stop himself: “They’re just a local band, Khun. You know how this ends. You find something raw, you turn it into something beautiful, and when it breaks, you pretend you didn’t see it coming.”

Khun finally looked up at him. His expression was calm, but his eyes had gone cold. “If it breaks, then it wasn’t beautiful enough.”

The room went still.

Hatz stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head. “You sound just like your sister when you say things like that.”

Khun didn’t respond. He waited until the door shut behind Hatz, then pressed play.

Bam’s voice filled the room again, low and imperfect, a sound that didn’t belong in this world of polished precision. The silence between each line seemed to press against the walls, too raw, too alive.

“Come closer,” the voice whispered,

“Let me pretend we’re something holy…”

Khun’s jaw tensed. He reached for the intercom.

“Get Yuri Jahad on the line,” he said. “And tell her I’m coming to see her.”

The assistant’s voice crackled through. “Now, sir?”

“Now,” Khun said.

He clicked the intercom off and looked out the window at the city sprawling far below.

The world outside was awake again, loud and merciless, but all he could think of was that voice—unpolished, unguarded, and far too dangerous to ignore.

He pocketed the flash drive.

Somewhere deep down, he knew this wasn’t about business anymore.

This was about gravity; about something pulling him toward the inevitable.

And if there was one thing Khun Aguero Agnis had never learned to do, it was resist the fall.

Jahad Entertainment — Private Lounge, 48th Floor

The elevator doors slid open with a quiet chime. Khun stepped into the lounge, all dark marble and low light, the kind of luxury that whispered power rather than flaunted it. The scent of expensive whiskey and cedar clung to the air, layered with something sharper: ambition.

Yuri Jahad was already there.

Of course she was.

She leaned back on the couch, booted feet propped carelessly on the glass table, black jacket slung half off her shoulder like a challenge. Her hair was still damp, she’d probably just come from training again, because even in this world of suits and contracts, Yuri never quite stopped moving like a fighter.

When she saw him, her grin widened. “Wow, you actually came. I was starting to think your assistant was kidding, that the great Khun Aguero Agnis had gone deaf.”

“I was hoping you’d forget you invited me,” Khun replied smoothly, crossing to the opposite seat.

“Not a chance.” She poured herself a drink and slid the bottle across to him, the amber liquid catching light like fire. “You listened, didn’t you?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he poured a small measure, watched the liquid settle, then finally said, “Yes.”

“And?”

Khun glanced up, his expression unreadable. “He’s good.”

Yuri’s eyebrows rose. “That’s it? After dragging yourself out of bed at 2 a.m. to watch some indie kid self-destruct onstage, all I get is ‘He’s good’?”

Khun’s tone stayed calm, almost clinical. “How… well, it was you who said he’d either save music or destroy it. I’m just deciding which one it’ll be.”

Yuri laughed— bright and unrestrained. “You sound like a man pretending he isn’t impressed.”

He didn’t deny it.

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “You know what I saw that night? A kid who sings like he’s running out of time. Like he’s standing at the edge of something no one else can see.”

“That’s not talent,” Khun said. “That’s instability.”

“It’s the same thing, sometimes.”

He looked at her, really looked. She wasn’t joking — not this time. Beneath her usual defiance, there was a rare seriousness in her eyes, like she’d already decided this mattered more than it should.

“Yuri,” he said quietly, “You don’t bring me projects. You bring me explosions.”

“And you always come to watch them explode,” she shot back. “Don’t act like you don’t love it.”

He smiled, thin and humorless. “Love isn’t the word.”

“Fine,” she said. “Then tell me what it is.”

Khun swirled his drink, the ice catching faint light. “It’s gravity,” he said at last. “You feel it before you understand it. And by the time you do, you’re already falling.”

The silence that followed was thick.

Yuri tilted her head, studying him. “Then you’re already halfway down, aren’t you?”

Khun didn’t answer. He reached into his pocket instead, pulled out the flash drive, and set it on the table between them. The light from above reflected off it — small, unremarkable, but heavy with implication.

Yuri’s smile faded. “You’re serious.”

“I always am.”

“Then what are you planning?”

He looked down at the drive for a moment before replying. “To see how far that voice can go before it breaks.”

Yuri’s fingers brushed against the table’s edge, nails tapping once — a restless rhythm. “You really think you can control it?”

“I don’t intend to control it,” Khun said. His eyes met hers, cool and unwavering. “I intend to understand it.”

A beat of quiet.

Then Yuri leaned back, lips curling into something caught between amusement and concern. “You’re going to drown in him, Khun.”

Khun almost smiled. “Then it’s a good thing I’ve learned how to hold my breath.”

The tension cracked just enough for Yuri to laugh again, but softer this time, less mockery, more recognition. “You’re impossible.”

“So are most things worth the effort,” he said, finishing his drink.

He stood to leave, slipping the flash drive back into his pocket.

“Send me everything you have on him,” Khun added, glancing toward the window where the daylight was burning through the last of the mist. “His background, performances, connections. I want to know who he is before the world does.”

Yuri raised an eyebrow. “And if the world never does?”

Khun’s reply was quiet, but absolute. “Then I’ll make sure it does.”

He turned toward the elevator.

Behind him, Yuri’s voice followed, low and thoughtful:

“Careful, Khun. Not every voice you find wants to be saved.”

He paused just long enough to glance over his shoulder. “I’m not trying to save him.” And then he was gone, the elevator doors sliding shut with a soft, final sound.

Yuri sat back on the couch, the flash of a grin returning to her lips, though her eyes stayed fixed on the city below.

“You sound just like a liar,” she whispered.

Two Days Later — Khun’s Office, Jahad Entertainment HQ

Khun’s office didn’t look like it belonged in an entertainment empire.

It was too quiet, too clean. No posters, no awards, no framed magazine covers of the idols he’d built and broken, just shelves of organized chaos, soundproof walls, and a piano that hadn’t been played in years. The only light in the office came from the monitors. Waveforms, audio clips, and dozens of digital folders spread across the screen like constellations. Every file was labeled neatly — Sweet and Sour – Hongdae, Bam_Interview, Crowd Mic A, Unreleased Cut.

He’d spent forty-eight hours doing what he always did best; dissecting.

Every performance video that existed of the band (there weren’t many), every shaky fan recording, every offhand blog mention, every whisper of their name in the corners of Seoul’s underground scene.

The results were… sparse.

The band had no official online presence. No social media. No marketing. Even the club where they performed hadn’t listed their name on the bill.

That was strange.

Almost deliberate.

Khun zoomed in on a freeze-frame from one of the recordings, it was a low-res shot of Bam under the dim blue stage light, eyes half-shadowed, mouth inches from the mic.

He watched the frame long enough that it almost seemed to move.

The boy didn’t look like someone desperate for fame.

He looked like someone trying to stay hidden, and failing beautifully.

He scrolled through the files again. In every video, the crowd reaction was the same: silence first, then awe, then a kind of disbelief. It wasn’t the reaction of people discovering a performer; It was the reaction of people witnessing something too raw to categorize.

Khun muted the clip and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

There was always a pattern in talent— a logic to it. People thought creativity was chaos, but to Khun, it was math. Predictable, measurable, controllable. But for this case… Bam was noise pretending to be melody. Emotion disguised as precision. A contradiction that shouldn’t work (yet it did).

He reached for his coffee—cold now—and found himself whispering without thinking,

“Who are you trying to reach?”

The question wasn’t meant for anyone, but it hung in the air anyway.

A soft chime interrupted his thoughts — a message notification.

He turned toward the screen.

Sender: Yuri Jahad

Attachment: [Sweet and Sour – Background.pdf]

Message: “You wanted a ghost story? Here it is.”

Khun clicked the file.

Names.

Dates.

Fragments.

Wangnan Ja — percussion, known for bar fights, part-time delivery driver, one prior arrest (disorderly conduct).

Elaine Lo Po Bia — pianist, belonged to the Lo Po Bia clan but is now “disowned”, a former conservatory student, dropped out two years ago.

David Hockney — bassist, art major, expelled for vandalism.

And then:

Twenty-Fifth Bam — vocals, guitar.

No record. No address. No past.

Khun stared at the words, brows knitting together.

Not no data.

No record.

It was as if the boy didn’t exist before last year.

He sat there for a long time, scrolling through nothing, the sound of the city muted behind the glass.

Finally, he opened another tab and began typing.

Search: Twenty-Fifth Bam real name.

Search: Sweet and Sour origin.

Search: Underground Seoul bands 2023–2024.

Every result came up empty.

He should’ve stopped there.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he pulled up the recording again — Habit — and played it from the start.

This time, he didn’t analyze it. He just listened.

The chorus rose like something inevitable:

Come closer, let me pretend we’re something holy—

Just long enough to ruin it again.

Khun’s jaw tightened.

That word again, holy.

It didn’t sound religious. It sounded like guilt.

He scrubbed forward, catching a fragment near the bridge he hadn’t noticed before, a background vocal, almost buried in the mix. Faint, breathless, but there.

A girl’s voice.

Khun froze.

He boosted the volume, filtered the frequencies, and isolated the layer.

It was just one line, overlapping Bam’s own:

You promised not to fall.

And then it was gone.

Khun leaned back, eyes narrowing. “So,” he murmured, “you’re not alone after all.”

He looked back at the file Yuri had sent, scanning for the others’ background details again — but nowhere did it mention a female member other than Elaine, and this wasn’t her voice. Too soft. Too personal.

He replayed it again.

And again.

The voice felt like a memory — haunting the edges, unfinished.

Khun’s reflection stared back at him on the screen; it was again sharp, sleepless, but alive.

He exhaled, closing his eyes briefly.

“Fine,” he said to the empty room. “If you won’t tell me who you are, I’ll find out myself.”

He stood, shrugging on his coat, and grabbed the flash drive. The rain had returned outside, faint and silver against the window.

As he stepped out of the office, the camera light on his monitor flickered once, as if recording him in return. And there, somewhere in the system, buried beneath file names and metadata, a single note had been appended to the Habit.mp3 file:

Edited: Rachel L.— Two months ago.

The Morning After, Sweet and Sour Apartment.

Morning in the Sweet and Sour apartment isn’t morning until the rice cooker starts clicking.

It’s an old model, a bit scratched and a little dented on one side from when Wangnan tripped over the power cord last month, but it still hums faithfully, steam curling from the vent like a sigh.

The air smells of soy sauce, burnt toast, and the faint sweetness of detergent. Someone must’ve done laundry at 3 a.m. again.

The living room is more clutter than furniture— a graveyard of empty ramen cups, crumpled lyric sheets, tangled cables, and two guitars that have seen better strings. A cheap poster of an old Jahad concert is taped crookedly to the wall, right above a peeling “No Smoking” sign that Hockney never listens to.

Elaine sits cross-legged on the couch, wearing one of Wangnan’s oversized shirts and a blanket draped like a royal cape. Her keyboard case is open beside her, keys scattered with post-it notes full of song titles, half of them scratched out in irritation. Across from her, Wangnan hunches over a pan, massacring an omelet.

“It’s not burning,” he insists when Elaine squints at the smoke.

“It’s crying for help,” she says, sipping from a chipped mug that reads World’s Okayest Musician.

Hockney is on the floor, back against the balcony door, sketching with his knees pulled to his chest. The cigarette behind his ear never gets lit; it just moves places depending on how frustrated he gets.

On the page, he’s drawn Bam again — or maybe a memory of him. Always that same half-smile, half-silence look.

“You think he slept?” Hockney asks, pencil still moving.

“Not a chance,” Elaine says, flicking a post-it off her leg. “He was humming through the walls again around five.”

“Good humming or sad humming?”

“Does he even have a happy version?”

That earns a snort from Wangnan, who flips the omelet a little too hard and curses when it lands half on the counter. “He’s probably writing another song that’s gonna make everyone in the audience reconsider their life choices.”

“Hey, it works,” Hockney says. “People like songs that hurt them a little.”

Elaine raises a brow. “Yeah, but he looks like they hurt him first.”

The apartment hums with soft background noise — the sizzle of oil, the buzz of an amp left on overnight, the slow drip of a leaky faucet. It’s home, in that imperfect way that makes everyone too comfortable to ever really leave.

The door to Bam’s room is slightly open. The light inside is dim, slanting across the scattered notebooks that cover his desk. There’s a half-empty cup of instant coffee beside them, long since cold.

On the wall above his bed, a single photo is pinned — the four of them after their first gig, sweaty and grinning like they’d just gotten away with a crime.

The kind of happiness you don’t plan, just stumble into.

Now, Bam sits on the edge of his bed, guitar resting across his lap. His fingers hover over the strings, unmoving. He isn’t playing. Just listening — to the sound of his friends outside. To laughter that doesn’t need him to exist.

His phone buzzes once beside him, screen lighting up.

> Rachel: You shouldn’t have sung that.

He stares at the words until they stop meaning anything.

Then he types back:

> Bam: I had to.

He doesn’t send it. Locks the phone, face-down.

From the kitchen, Wangnan calls out, “Bam! You want eggs or existential dread for breakfast?”

“Both,” Bam answers through the door, voice quiet but smiling.

Elaine rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling too. “Tell him to bring both himself and a plate this time.”

Bam takes a breath, sets his guitar gently aside, and steps into the warmth of the living room.

Wangnan cheers. “The myth, the legend, the most emotionally devastating man in Seoul awakens!”

“Shut up,” Bam mutters, but there’s laughter behind it. He sits cross-legged on the floor beside Hockney, stealing a piece of omelet right from the pan.

They eat together, arguing softly about last night’s setlist, about who forgot to pay the internet bill, about whether Elaine’s keyboard has finally given up on life. It’s easy, familiar — the kind of peace that only exists between people who’ve seen each other at their worst and decided to stay anyway.

After a while, Hockney says, without looking up from his sketchbook, “You ever notice how after every gig, Bam looks like he left something behind?”

Wangnan hums around a mouthful of rice. “Yeah. But maybe that’s how he makes room for the next song.”

Elaine glances at Bam, who’s staring out the window again, lost somewhere between the sun and the noise. “Or maybe he just never brings himself all the way back.”

Bam turns at that, smiles faintly. “I’m still here,” he says.

And somehow, they all know that’s both true and not at all.

The rice cooker clicks off. Steam curls into the still air like the ghost of a song. Elaine leaned over it, brow furrowed. “If this thing dies before rent’s due, I’m setting it on fire and calling it art.”

“Art doesn’t usually smell like burned eggs,” Wangnan said helpfully, slapping his chopsticks against the table.

“Depends on the artist,” Hockney murmured without looking up, pencil dragging slow, patient lines across his sketchbook. “Everything’s performance if you suffer enough.”

Bam smiled faintly— small, tired, the kind of smile that barely surfaces. He’d been quiet all morning, quieter than usual. But it's alright, no one mentioned it. That was part of their rhythm, the unspoken permission to vanish into your own head as long as you came back before nightfall.

The clock on the wall, missing its second hand, read 10:42. The apartment glowed gold with late morning light. Outside, the street was still slick from last night’s rain, and someone in the next unit was playing a ballad too loud for the hour.

Bam stared at the ceiling, still hearing it — the echo that refused to leave. His voice, not from the room, but from memory.

Come closer, let me pretend we’re something holy—

The words replayed like a pulse, threaded with the ghost of neon and applause.

But another image cut through, clearer than he wanted it to be; it was a memory of last night.

Flashback — The Alley Behind Sweet and Sour, Last Night.

The set had barely ended when someone had called his name; it was sharp, unfamiliar, cutting through the noise. He’d turned, still dazed from the lights, and seen her: a woman leaning against a lamppost like she owned the night.

Short black hair, dark eyes that laughed before her mouth did.

Yuri Jahad.

He hadn’t even realized he was staring until she pushed off the post and approached, the sound of her boots muted by the drizzle.

“You’ve got the nerve,” she said. “And a death wish, singing like that in front of strangers.”

Bam blinked, unsure if it was praise or a warning. “I just… sang?”

“Exactly,” she said, smiling now; sharp-edged, knowing. “You don’t sing to impress. You sing to bleed.”

Before he could reply, she reached into her jacket and flicked something toward him. It spun through the air, catching the light. It was a sleek black business card, embossed with a gold tower. He barely caught it.

Yuri Jahad — Talent Division, Jahad Entertainment.

“If you ever want to see how deep that voice of yours can drown people,” she said, turning to leave, “come find me.”

Then she was gone, just like that, swallowed by the rain.

⁕

The memory faded as his phone buzzed now, sharp and real in the quiet apartment.

Elaine glanced up, eyebrow arched. “Rachel again?”

Bam shook his head, reaching for the phone and froze.

Yuri Jahad.

His heart stuttered once.

“Uh… guys?”

Wangnan looked up mid-bite. “You sound like someone found our unpaid bar tab.”

“No,” Bam said slowly. “Worse. Jahad Entertainment.”

The chopsticks froze halfway to Wangnan’s mouth.

Elaine blinked. “You’re kidding.”

He turned the phone so they could see.

Hockney let out a low whistle. “Well. Guess the Tower found its next victim.”

“Answer it!” Wangnan hissed, nearly spilling his noodles.

Bam hesitated, yet he then swiped.

“Hello?”

The voice that greeted him was unmistakable, smooth, and amused.

“Bam, right? This is Yuri Jahad. We met last night. Well, technically, I threw a card at you.”

Bam blinked. “Ah. Yes. I remember.”

“Good,” she said. “You and your band made quite an impression. I want to hear more. You free tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” he echoed.

“Relax. It’s not an audition. Just a conversation. Bring your friends if you want— the drummer, the sketchbook guy, the one who looks like she wants to kill her rice cooker. You’ve got something special, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

That last line made something twist in his chest. “Oh, uhm. Who else?” Well, shit, that unexpectedly slipped from his mouth. His curiosity got the best of him—can he even ask that?

“Someone very particular,” Yuri said lightly. “But don’t worry. He only bites when provoked. Noon. Tower HQ, 47th floor.”

The line clicked before he could reply.

He stared at the phone for a full ten seconds before his brain caught up.

Then the apartment exploded.

Wangnan nearly choked on his food. “Holy hell—Jahad Entertainment?! Like, the Jahad Entertainment?”

Elaine grabbed the phone to confirm it wasn’t a joke. “She actually called,” she whispered. “She really—”

Hockney didn’t look up, already sketching a rough outline of a tower. “Forty-seventh floor. That’s executive level.”

“That means—” Wangnan began.

“That means,” Elaine interrupted, “we’re either about to make it or get eaten alive.”

Bam sank back into his chair, head spinning. “Maybe both.”

No one laughed this time.

He stood, moving toward the window. Outside, the city looked deceptively calm — sky washed clean, sunlight glinting off puddles like promises. Their reflection in the glass looked smaller than the world waiting beyond it.

Elaine joined him. “You okay?”

Bam nodded. “Yeah. Just… strange. We’ve been trying to be heard for so long. And now someone finally listened.”

“Maybe it’s about time,” she said.

He wanted to believe her. But as he looked down at the card now resting on the windowsill, he felt the same pull he’d felt last night, that mix of awe and quiet fear. The kind you feel when the door you’ve been knocking on your whole life finally opens, and you’re not sure what’s waiting inside. It was the kind that made you aware of everything — the hum of the fridge, the faint hiss of traffic outside, the heartbeat you didn’t know you were holding.

Wangnan exploded with sudden curiosity, an attempt to ease up the situation a bit. “Okay, guys, enough of that. An important question here is, do you think she meant noon as in tomorrow noon? Or like, show-business noon? You know, the kind that’s actually 3 p.m.? Is this even real? Are we lucid dreaming?”

“Stop talking,” Elaine said without looking up from the phone, still scrolling through the call log as if it might vanish. “It’s real. She called from a verified Jahad line.”

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t eat first,” Hockney muttered. “History’s full of people who fainted during major life events.”

He rose, padded toward the fridge, and opened it to a tragic display of half-eaten leftovers and one expired yogurt.

He sighed. “Or maybe not.”

Bam leaned against the counter, watching them. The light caught his hair in uneven streaks, making him look more tired than he was. “We’ll figure it out,” he said softly — the kind of calm people use when they’re trying not to show how terrified they are.

Elaine rubbed her temples. “We don’t even have clothes that don’t smell like practice rooms.”

“Speak for yourself,” Wangnan said, sniffing his jacket and immediately regretting it. “Okay, yeah. You’re right.”

Their laughter this time was thin, but real. It filled the apartment the way the morning light did — imperfectly, but enough to make it feel like home again.

Hockney returned with a sketchbook and flopped down on the couch.

“What do you think they’ll ask tomorrow?” he said. “About our process? Our influences?”

“Probably about rent,” Elaine muttered.

“Or trauma,” Wangnan added. “People love trauma.”

“Speak for yourself,” Elaine said, throwing a spoon at him.

Bam smiled again— properly this time. The kind of smile that never lasted long, but changed the air when it appeared.

He drifted toward the window, where the card Yuri had given him still lay on the sill.

It caught the sunlight in strange ways, too bright, too clean for their cluttered little space.

Yuri Jahad — Talent Division, Jahad Entertainment.

The name felt unreal. Like a punchline that hadn’t landed yet.

He traced the edge of the card with his thumb, remembering her face; the half-smirk, the casual certainty of someone used to rearranging other people’s fates.

He didn’t know whether to be grateful or afraid.

⁕

The day slipped by quietly after that.

Elaine went out to borrow clothes from a friend who actually owned an iron. Hockney spent hours sketching Bam in the corner, muttering something about “capturing nervous energy.”

Wangnan practiced introductions in the mirror — “Hi, I’m the drummer,” repeated twelve different ways.

By sunset, the apartment smelled faintly of soap and overcooked noodles. Someone had also left the radio on, playing an old ballad from the 2000s that no one wanted to turn off.

Bam sat by the window again, guitar in his lap, strumming quietly, not enough to form a song, just enough to think. He didn’t notice Elaine until she spoke.

“You keep playing that same progression.”

“It’s stuck in my head,” he said.

“From last night?”

He nodded.

“Then maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Or maybe it’s dangerous.”

She tilted her head. “You ever notice how you say maybe like it’s a confession?”

He looked at her, startled, but she was already walking away.

⁕

Across the city, on the 47th floor of the Jahad Tower, Khun Aguero Agnis leaned back in his chair, eyes on the skyline. The morning light caught in the glass and scattered over the sleek surface of his desk. On his monitor, the same waveform blinked — waiting.

He’d already read Yuri’s message five minutes ago.

> Meeting confirmed. Noon. Don’t scare them yet.

Khun smiled faintly, tapping a pen against the edge of the desk.

“Too late for that,” he murmured.

He looked toward the flash drive lying beside his keyboard, its label worn, faintly smudged.

His reflection in the window looked pale, ghostlike, but his eyes gleamed with something precise— anticipation, or maybe warning.

“Let’s see if that voice still burns in daylight.”

The flash drive still lay on his desk, beside a stack of perfectly aligned folders.

He hadn’t opened it again, but he hadn’t put it away either.

Instead, he was scrolling through reports, performance reviews, contract breakdowns, scouting notes, but none of it was staying in his head.

His eyes kept drifting back to the window. The city was a thousand fractured reflections — and somewhere in one of them, he swore he could hear a chord still ringing. He reached for his phone, half-thinking of calling Yuri, then stopped himself. She’d only laugh, tell him he was overthinking again.

Maybe she’d be right.

But overthinking was how Khun survived.

He rubbed his thumb along the flash drive, thoughtful.

Some voices didn’t wait to be found.

They found you first— and then they didn’t leave.

The thought should’ve bothered him more than it did.

⁕

Later, in the Sweet and Sour apartment,

Wangnan was already asleep, snoring faintly on the couch, and Elaine had dozed off sitting upright, laptop still open, the cursor blinking like a heartbeat on an unwritten line. While Hockney’s pencil had rolled onto the floor, his latest sketch unfinished — the outline of a tower, crumbling at the edges.

Bam sat awake.

The room was heavy with the kind of silence that only happens when everyone else has surrendered to it. The clock ticked unevenly; the refrigerator hummed in protest. Outside, the city lights spilled through the blinds in fractured stripes, cutting across the walls like restless ghosts.

The card lay beside him, catching the glow from the streetlight.

He turned it over once. Twice.

The logo of Jahad Entertainment gleamed like an accusation.

He didn’t know if he was ready for tomorrow — he didn’t know if anyone could be. They were all nervous about the meeting, but out of all of them, he was the only one still awake in the cramped apartment.

Restless. Pulled toward something he couldn’t name.

He reached for his guitar almost without thinking. The neck was smooth from years of overuse, the strings faintly cold against his fingers. He didn’t bother to plug it in. The sound was soft, almost private, like a whisper meant for no one.

The first chord came out wrong.

He winced, adjusted his grip. Tried again.

It wasn’t a song yet— just fragments, half-thoughts strung together by habit.

He let them drift where they wanted.

“If I don’t fall asleep,” he whispered under his breath, “maybe the world won’t change.”

He didn’t even know where the line came from, but he wrote it down anyway, on the back of a takeaway receipt, the only paper within reach.

His handwriting was uneven, slanted.

He added another line. Then crossed it out.

If I keep still, maybe nothing will find me.

He stared at the words until they blurred. Some part of him knew he wasn’t writing about the meeting. Or about the song. He was writing about her, the one who’d left without explanation, who still haunted the spaces between his lyrics.

Rachel’s shadow lingered in every word he tried to escape.

He exhaled slowly, pressing his thumb against the strings until the sound went sharp, raw.

Then he played again, the melody that came out was fragile; a quiet spiral of notes that never seemed to resolve. He hummed under his breath, letting it fill the room like a secret prayer.

You said not to wait,

but the rain still sounds like your voice.

And I keep listening.

He stopped, hand hovering midair.

Even the sound of his breathing felt too loud.

From the couch, Wangnan turned over, muttering in his sleep.

Elaine’s laptop chimed softly as the screen dimmed.

Bam looked at them— his friends, his only constant —and smiled faintly.

Then, before the moment could slip away, he scribbled one last line beneath the others:

Some songs aren’t meant to save anyone.

He folded the paper once, tucked it into the back of his guitar case, and set the instrument down carefully beside the wall.

Outside, a car passed — headlights sweeping briefly across the room before fading.

Bam leaned against the window frame, eyes tracing the city below. Seoul shimmered like something half-awake, alive and indifferent. Somewhere out there, the Tower waited, too bright, too high, too far from everything he understood.

He rested his forehead against the glass, and for a moment, it almost felt like the world had gone still. “Tomorrow,” he whispered, as if the word itself might answer.

But the night stayed quiet, and Bam stayed awake writing songs no one was meant to hear,

for reasons he couldn’t yet name.

The world outside their window looked too clean to be real. The sun rose more quickly than Bam expected (after all, he barely slept). Mornings in Seoul had a way of pretending it was gentle, soft light spilling over concrete, traffic humming like the city was just another living thing waking up.

Inside Sweet and Sour’s apartment, it didn’t feel like morning at all. It felt like… the torture of waiting. There, Elaine stood at the sink, rinsing out three chipped mugs and pretending her hands weren’t shaking while Wangnan had been pacing for twenty straight minutes, muttering introductions under his breath again. Hockney had opened and closed the same sketchbook four times without drawing a line.

And Bam, well, he just sat there.

He’d dressed simply: black jeans, an old button-up, hair still damp from the shower. But there was something careful in the way he moved, like every gesture had been stripped of its usual rhythm. His guitar case leaned by the door, zipped and ready. The card from Yuri lay next to it, gleaming faintly against the chipped floorboards.

“Should we… eat?” Wangnan asked finally.

Elaine glanced at him, deadpan. “Can you?”

He hesitated. “No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

The clock ticked — 9:57.

They needed to leave by ten to reach the Tower by noon, but no one wanted to be the one to say let’s go. Leaving meant admitting it was real.

Bam checked his phone again. No new messages. The silence on the screen was somehow louder than anything else.

He sighed, slid it into his pocket, and stood.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Let’s not make them wait.”

The ride to the Tower felt longer than it was.

None of them spoke much. Outside, the city was blurred by glass, rain-streaked metal, the kind of endless movement that made you feel small even before you realized it. Elaine sat by the window, earphones in but no music playing. Wangnan was tapping his foot to some rhythm only he could hear. Hockney sketched the skyline absently, the line of the Tower’s silhouette taking shape across the page like something sacred and dangerous.

Bam watched the road and every time the car turned, the sunlight caught on the buildings like knives. He told himself it was just nerves, but it didn’t feel like nerves. It felt like being pulled somewhere he hadn’t agreed to go.

It only took a matter of short naps until they arrive at the Tower just before noon. The building in front of them rose above them like a judgment — sharp, endless, a monolith of glass and shadow that swallowed clouds. The logo of Jahad Entertainment shimmered across the entrance, reflected in every window around it. For a second, all four of them stood still at the foot of it, half awe, half disbelief.

Wangnan whistled low. “You think they’d notice if we ran?”

Elaine elbowed him. “They’d notice.”

“Then I’m staying,” Hockney said, pocketing his sketchbook.

Bam didn’t say anything. He just stared up at the building until the reflection of the sun blurred his vision. Then he exhaled once, steadying himself, and stepped forward.

Inside, the air felt different; it was cleaner, colder, like it had been filtered of every human sound.

Receptionists moved like clockwork, security guards scanned badges without looking up, and the elevator chimed softly, as though trying not to disturb the order.

They were led upward through a maze of white hallways and glass walls.

The higher they went, the quieter it became, until even their own footsteps felt like noise.

47th floor.

The elevator doors slid open to reveal a lobby that didn’t look like a workplace. In fact, it looked like a museum; all marble and chrome, lined with gold-trimmed plaques of names that had already shaped the industry. Bam recognized some of them, and he wished he hadn’t.

Yuri Jahad was waiting by the window.

She turned when they entered, the morning light hitting her like she was part of it— crisp, dangerous, effortlessly at ease.

“Sweet and Sour,” she said with a grin. “Glad you didn’t chicken out.”

Wangnan blinked. “We considered it.”

Yuri laughed. “Good. Means you’re smart.” She gestured toward the hallway behind her. “Come on. The one who actually matters is waiting.”

“The one who—?” Elaine began, but Yuri was already walking.

They followed— four mismatched footsteps echoing down the marble corridor.

At the end of it was a door left slightly open.

Inside, the air carried the faint hum of a computer, the low sound of rain against glass.

Khun Aguero Agnis sat at the desk, back to them, watching the skyline like it had personally offended him. The flash drive from Hongdae rested beside his monitor.

He didn’t turn around when they entered.

“Close the door, please,” he said with a voice so calm, clipped, and measured.

Yuri arched a brow. “Still dramatic, I see.”

He ignored that. Finally, he looked up and his eyes found Bam immediately.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Khun leaned back slightly in his chair, studying him with a kind of surgical precision.

“So,” he said at last, “you’re the one who decided to sing like the world was ending.”

Bam blinked, caught off guard. “I—don’t know if that’s what I—”

Khun cut him off gently. “Good. Don’t explain it.”

He gestured to the seats across from his desk. “Sit. We have a lot to talk about.”

The others moved first, Wangnan whispering a half-audible holy shit under his breath, but Bam lingered a second longer by the door. He could feel it, somehow: the air changing, the space between them tightening. Whatever this was, it wasn’t just a meeting.

It was the start of something he didn’t yet have words for.

And as he finally stepped forward, Khun’s gaze followed him like a line already drawn.

The air in Khun’s office was too clean — filtered, perfumed, expensive.

It smelled faintly of ozone and citrus, like rain trapped in a boardroom.

The kind of place that made ordinary people conscious of every sound they made.

Bam sat opposite him, hands clasped loosely in his lap, trying not to fidget.

Wangnan shifted in his seat beside him, foot tapping under the table; Elaine pretended not to notice, arms crossed tightly; Hockney was the only one who seemed relaxed, sketching something absently on the corner of a promotional pamphlet.

Yuri stood near the window, leaning against the frame like she’d been here a hundred times — because she had.

Her expression was halfway between amusement and curiosity, watching both men like she was waiting for lightning to strike.

Khun didn’t speak at first. He was studying them — but not the way most producers did, not as a group to be marketed or refined. His gaze moved like a scalpel, silent, efficient, cutting through layers of posture and expression as if he could see what held each of them together.

Finally, he leaned back, folding his hands.

“Sweet and Sour,” he said evenly, the syllables crisp and almost ironic. “Interesting name.”

Wangnan tried to smile. “It’s accurate, though.”

Khun raised a single eyebrow. “To what — your music or your rent situation?”

Yuri snorted from the window. “Both, probably.”

Elaine shot her a glare, but Khun’s mouth twitched — almost a smile, but not quite.

“I listened to your live recording,” he continued. “Hongdae. Small venue, bad acoustics. You made it work.” His eyes flicked to Bam, sharp enough to pin him in place. “That last song — ‘Habit.’ You wrote it.”

Bam nodded, hesitating. “Yeah. It… wasn’t planned.”

“That much was obvious,” Khun said. “But you sang it anyway.”

Something about his tone wasn’t condescending; it was clinical, dissecting, but not unkind.

He turned to his console, clicked a key, and the opening notes of Habit filled the room — soft, raw, imperfect.

The band stiffened. Hearing it here, in this space, surrounded by silence and glass, made it sound like something else entirely.

Bam’s pulse quickened.

Khun let it play for ten seconds before pausing it.

“That’s the problem,” he said quietly. “It shouldn’t work. It shouldn’t hold together — the rhythm’s uneven, the phrasing breaks every rule. But it does.”

He looked at Bam again, eyes unreadable.“You know why?”

Bam swallowed. “Because it’s honest?”

Khun tilted his head slightly. “Because you don’t know what you’re doing yet.”

The words should’ve stung, but they didn’t. Bam met his gaze, steady.

“Then maybe that’s why it sounds alive.”

Yuri let out a low whistle. “Oh, he’s got teeth.”

Khun’s lips curved faintly — not amusement, something closer to approval.

He leaned forward, elbows resting on the desk. “Tell me, Bam, who were you singing to?”

The question caught him off guard. He blinked. “I wasn’t—”

Khun raised a hand. “Don’t lie. People don’t write songs like that without ghosts in the room.”

The silence that followed was heavier than the question itself.

Wangnan glanced at Elaine; Hockney stopped sketching.

Bam looked down at his hands, fingers tightening slightly. “It doesn’t matter who,” he said softly. “The song wasn’t for them. It was for me.”

Khun studied him a moment longer. Then, slowly, he nodded.

“That’s the only right answer you could’ve given.”

Yuri grinned. “So, what do you think, ice prince? Are they worth your time?”

Khun didn’t look at her. His gaze stayed fixed on Bam. “They’re not ready,” he said simply.

Elaine frowned. “Then why call us up here?”

“Because,” Khun replied, standing, “I don’t take on people who are ready. Ready means predictable. And predictable,” his eyes shifted to the flash drive still on his desk, “doesn’t change anything.”

He picked up a pen, scrawled something on a small notepad, and tore the page off.

“Come back next week. Same time. Bring your instruments.”

Wangnan blinked. “Wait, does that mean we’re—?”

“It means,” Khun said, sliding the note across the desk, “I want to see if that voice still burns when it’s under pressure.”

Bam took the note, the paper warm from Khun’s hand.

The writing was neat, deliberate — a time, a date, and a single word beneath it: Test.

He looked up. “What kind of test?”

Khun’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “The kind that tells me whether you survive this business… or disappear like the rest.”

As they left the room, Yuri lingered behind, watching Khun stare out the window again.

“You’re doing that thing,” she said.

“What thing?”

“The thing where you pretend you’re detached,” she said with a smirk. “But your pulse gives you away.”

He didn’t look at her. “He’s dangerous.”

“Most worthwhile things are.”

Her tone softened then, almost curious. “You think he knows what he is yet?”

Khun’s reflection flickered against the glass, pale and distant.

“No,” he said quietly. “And that’s what makes him terrifying.”

Yuri hummed a tune as she picked herself up to leave, taking a glance at Khun. “Do your thing, genius,” she said, waving a hand. “Break him just enough to make him brilliant.” The room stayed quiet after Yuri soon left.

Khun didn’t move. The soft hiss of the air conditioner filled the silence, a sterile kind of white noise that made the space feel even emptier. The skyline burned faintly through the window, streaked with the late afternoon light, Seoul’s endless sprawl reflecting back in the glass, fractured into a thousand miniature versions of itself.

On the desk, the flash drive still lay where he’d placed it. A sliver of cheap plastic, unremarkable, but the way it caught the light made it look almost sacred.

He reached for it, turning it over once between his fingers. The texture was rough against his skin — uneven, imperfect — and that small imperfection grounded him more than the entire room around him.

For a moment, he let himself imagine the sound again. That voice. Not the clean studio playback, not even the memory of it, just the raw pulse of it, the way it felt to hear it breathing between the notes.

It lingered in his mind like the afterimage of lightning, impossible to unsee.

Khun leaned back in his chair, gaze drifting toward the skyline. Cars traced silver veins through the city below, streetlights flickering to life one by one as dusk bled into the edges of glass towers. Somewhere down there, the boy — that voice — was probably walking home, unaware that he’d already tilted someone else’s axis.

The thought unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.

He pressed a hand against the back of his neck, eyes closing briefly. He could still hear it — that soft, aching tremor, the kind that made even silence feel heavy.

“Terrifying,” he’d said.

He wasn’t sure anymore if he’d meant Bam, or himself.

When he opened his eyes again, the light had shifted; gold thinning into blue. The reflection in the glass blurred his features, cutting him into shapes of color and shadow. For a split second, it almost looked like someone else staring back.

He turned the flash drive over one last time, then set it down carefully beside his notebook.

The city outside shimmered faintly through the glass, it's alive, humming, indifferent.

And somewhere beyond that horizon, a boy’s voice was still echoing in the dark, carrying words that refused to fade.

Khun exhaled, quiet but unsteady.

“Every once in a while, a voice finds you, and nothing sounds the same after.”

He paused, eyes flicking to the corner of the desk where a photograph lay facedown.

“Right, Maria?”

He stayed like that until the city lights blurred into a haze and his reflection disappeared completely, swallowed by the dark.

Chapter Text

Present Day

By noon, the quote had already metastasized across every corner of the internet.

“Some things don’t need to be rebuilt. Especially if the foundation was a lie.”

Within an hour, it was everywhere—looped over reels, clipped into thirty-second edits, printed in pale serif fonts against monochrome portraits of Bam. A thousand headlines rearranged it like scripture, arguing over tone, subtext, betrayal.

#The25thHour trended again for the first time in years.

And somewhere high above the city, the man who’d built half of it sat in silence, watching his own creation slip through his hands a second time.

Jahad Entertainment Tower was a knife of glass and chrome, its walls humming faintly with the pulse of servers and rain. The 47th-floor boardroom looked like something carved out of order itself; soundproof, immaculate, a place where emotion wasn’t supposed to reach.

Khun Aguero Agnis sat at the long end of the table, one leg crossed neatly over the other, eyes fixed on the projection in front of him. The video was muted, but he didn’t need the sound. He’d memorized the cadence already, the way Bam’s mouth shaped the word lie, the slight hesitation before foundation, the faint, controlled exhale afterward that never made it into the recording. It was deliberate— everything Bam did now was deliberate, and he’d learned that from him.

“Sir?” a young assistant asked quietly from the corner. “The clip’s trending globally—Jahad HQ’s already requesting a formal position statement.” Khun didn’t respond at first. His reflection flickered faintly in the glass wall beside him, his features half-absorbed by the light outside.

“Do nothing,” he said finally.

The assistant blinked. “Sir?”

“Let it eat itself,” Khun murmured, eyes still fixed on the projection. “We aren't feeding the fire that isn't ours.”

The assistant hesitated. “Should I at least inform—”

“No,” Khun interrupted, the faintest edge slipping into his tone. “If anyone asks, say I’m monitoring it. That’s all.” He didn’t look up again until the door clicked shut behind them, the room fell into silence except for the muted hum of the servers and the distant thunder outside.

Khun leaned back, elbows resting on the armrest, head tilted toward the city below.

Seoul sprawled beneath him, gray and restless, drenched in rain that refused to stop. Every light looked like a heartbeat struggling against the dark.

Five years. Five years since The 25th Hour.

Five years since the voice he built learned to live without him.

He’d thought time would dull it—the ache, the obsession, the echo—but the truth was simpler and crueler:

Bam’s voice still lived somewhere in his blood; not as sound, but as a pulse so precise it rewired his heartbeat, an echo stitched so deep that even silence seemed to hum with its memory.

Just as deep he was in thought, the door of his office opened without warning.

“Still brooding over ghosts, I see.”

The voice was smooth, deep, threaded with amusement and authority that didn’t ask for permission. Khun didn’t need to turn, there was only one person in the Tower who walked in without knocking.

“Father,” he greeted quietly.

Khun Eduan closed the door behind him with deliberate grace. His suit was immaculate; charcoal-gray, tailored to precision, and his silver hair gleamed faintly in the dim light. He was elegance made human, but colder than any machine could ever be and every step he took seemed to bend the air around him.

“You’ve seen it, then,” Eduan said, stopping by the long glass window. The city reflected in his eyes like a battlefield.

“I have,” Khun replied.

Eduan clasped his hands behind his back. “Jahad saw it too. He called this morning.”

That made Khun look up. “He called?”

“Mm.” Eduan’s tone stayed conversational, but the weight of it pressed against the room like gravity. “He’s displeased. Thinks it’s a poor look for the company to have one of its most profitable ghosts condemning the brand that birthed him. He asked if I’d lost control of my son’s division.”

Khun smiled thinly, a smile made of glass. “Did you tell him you hadn’t?”

Eduan’s gaze cut toward him, it was sharp, cold, and assessing. “I told him control isn’t the problem. Sentiment is.”

The silence between them was brittle.

“Five years,” Eduan continued, turning his attention back to the rain-soaked skyline. “You’d think that’s long enough for the past to rot in peace. And yet, here he is again, the boy you couldn’t let die quietly.” Khun’s fingers twitched once against the table, the only betrayal of emotion.

“It was inevitable. You don’t cage a voice like that forever.”

“No,” Eduan agreed softly. “But you don’t let it bite the hand that made it either.”

He turned fully now, his gaze landing squarely on his son. “You do remember who made you possible, don’t you, Aguero?”

Khun’s lips curved. “Ah. So this is about heritage now?”

“This is about loyalty,” Eduan said, voice hardening. “You may have built your name producing the next generation’s idols, but the blood that built Jahad Entertainment runs through the great ten. Through this family. Through me. Through you. And whether you like it or not, he—” He gestured toward the still image of Bam on the monitor, mid-sentence, eyes downcast, expression unreadable— “He owes everything to that legacy.”

Khun tilted his head, gaze steady. “And what does Jahad think he owes to him?”

Eduan smiled faintly, something cruel flickering beneath it. “Debt. He sees him as an ungrateful creation. One who forgets the power that allowed him to rise.” He leaned in slightly. “You should know how that feels.” The words hit harder than they should have.

Khun met his father’s gaze, calm but sharp. “You think I care about Jahad’s disappointment?”

Eduan chuckled lowly. “No. You care about his interest. And right now, that interest is dangerous.”

Khun frowned. “In what way?”

Eduan’s voice lowered, each word deliberate. “He’s considering reacquisition.”

For a moment, Khun’s mask slipped, barely, but enough. “You mean Bam.”

Eduan didn’t confirm or deny, but the look in his eyes said enough. “Five years apart, and the boy still commands more attention than half the Tower combined,” Eduan said. “Jahad doesn’t like wild variables. He wants them contained, or destroyed.”

Khun leaned back, studying him. “And what do you want, Father?”

Eduan’s smile was razor-thin. “Balance. Control. The Tower doesn’t run on talent, Aguero. It runs on obedience. Don’t forget which one made you rich.”

“Right,” Khun murmured, voice dry. “And which one made me human?”

Eduan’s gaze sharpened, but he didn’t answer. He turned toward the window again, the city’s reflection swallowing him whole. “Jahad’s watching,” he said. “He wants a report. And I’d rather not tell him my son is still chasing after something that’s already burned him once.”

Khun looked at the paused image of Bam again, that same faint, haunted half-smile caught mid-sentence. When he spoke, his voice was almost too soft to hear. “Some fires never go out.”

Eduan’s reflection smiled, cold and certain. “Then you’d better learn to survive the smoke.”

And with that, he left. No door slam, no lingering words, just the quiet hum of power leaving the room.

⁕

Khun sat there long after his father’s footsteps disappeared down the hall. The rain had begun again, harder this time, streaking the glass until the world outside looked warped and distant.

He pressed play once more.

Bam’s voice filled the silence.

“Especially if the foundation was a lie.”

Khun exhaled, slow and controlled. His reflection trembled against the flicker of light from the screen.

He didn’t look away this time.

⁕

By the time the city had drowned itself in neon and rain, Khun had already driven halfway across it, he cancelled tonight's meeting due to “sudden errands” he needed to attend, but he didn’t spare anyone the details of where he was going.

The roads shimmered under streetlights, painted silver by water while the traffic hissed in the distance, but here, in the older part of Seoul, the streets were quieter, the kind of quiet that hummed with the ghosts of everything left unsaid. His car rolled to a stop in front of a squat building at the end of the block, the sign above the door was faded almost to invisibility, but the outline of the letters still clung stubbornly to the frame.

The 25th Hour Studio.

He hadn’t been here in years. Jahad Entertainment had newer, cleaner studios now, all glass and soundproofing, built for efficiency, not memory. But this one… this one had always been different, it was where everything started— and ended.

Khun turned off the engine, and for a moment, he just sat there, the rain ticking softly against the windshield. Then he stepped out.

The air smelled like wet asphalt and old dust. He reached for the key that still hung from his car’s rearview mirror—the one he’d never managed to throw away— and slipped it into the lock. The door opened with a reluctant sigh, as if even the hinges remembered. Inside, time had settled thick as dust. The walls were the same dull gray, the floor still scuffed with the ghosts of equipment long since hauled away, the faint outline of old soundproof panels clung to the corners like forgotten skin.

Khun walked through it in silence, his footsteps muffled against the worn carpet. Every few paces, his hand brushed over something that wasn’t there anymore; a mic stand, a monitor, the small couch Bam used to fall asleep on between takes.

He stopped by the glass booth, the recording mic still hung in the center, unplugged, tilted slightly as if waiting. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

The silence hit him like a wave.

It wasn’t empty, well not really.

It was the kind of silence that held the shape of sound.

He could still hear it, even now.

The way Bam’s voice used to bloom in this space, fragile and full of danger,

the way it would make the walls hum and the air tighten,

the way it could turn confession into melody without even meaning to.

Khun leaned against the glass, eyes half-closed.

For a moment, he let himself remember.

“Again,” he’d said once, years ago, through the intercom.

“You’re rushing the second verse.”

“I know,” Bam had replied, frustrated, voice rough from too many takes. “It just—hurts there.”

Khun’s tone had softened without meaning to. “Then sing it like it does.”

He almost smiled at the memory. Almost.

The faint hum of electricity flickered back to life somewhere in the walls, probably the old backup system, still clinging to its circuits. Khun turned toward the console, dust blanketed everything, but when he brushed his fingers over the controls, the small indicator light blinked on, weak but persistent.

A single file remained in the archive, its name? Quite simple.

Recording_v5.mp3

Khun stared at it for a long time before pressing play.

The speakers crackled, then steadied, and there it was. The first chord of The 25th Hour, the title track they’d written together, the one that had changed everything. Then a voice came slowly, it was Bam’s clear, young voice, trembling at first before it steadied into something unearthly.

Tell me, tell me—if I fall, would you climb back down for me

Would you let the quiet swallow me whole?

Khun exhaled, low, his hand gripping the edge of the console.

He could remember the night they recorded it— the fight that came before, the silence that followed, the way Bam had walked into the booth afterward and turned heartbreak into sound like he was bleeding in time.

Would you count my echoes in the hollow of your chest,

Till every sound of me turns your silence red and bleeds?

He hadn’t realized then that it was a goodbye disguised as a song.

The track ended on a single note that hung longer than it should have, a sustained hum that faded into static.

Khun closed his eyes.

When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.

“You always did know how to end things.”

He stayed there until the rain softened, until the city’s hum became just another layer of sound outside. The studio felt smaller now, stripped of its myth, just four walls, a console, and an echo that refused to die. When he finally stepped out, he locked the door behind him, though he wasn’t sure why. Though there were some things that didn't need to be rebuilt, they didn’t deserve to be buried, either.

As he reached his car, his phone buzzed.

> Yuri Jahad:

You saw the interview, didn’t you?

Khun hesitated, thumb hovering over the screen.

> Khun Aguero:

I did.

A pause. Then another message.

> Yuri Jahad:

He’s got a concert next month. FUG’s anniversary event. You should come.

Khun stared at the message, unreadable.

Then, slowly, he typed back.

> Khun Aguero:

I don’t go to funerals.

He locked the phone, started the car, and drove, but the rain followed him like a song he couldn’t turn off.

⁕

The weight of silence was comforting yet suffocating, the city outside his window never slept; Even at midnight, Seoul glowed like a constellation of light and noise sprawling past the horizon, restless and awake, the same way he was.

Bam sat on the edge of his hotel balcony, the curtain pulled aside just enough to let the skyline in. The air was cold, rain-slicked, humming faintly with the sound of distant traffic. His phone lay face down beside him, screen still buzzing every few seconds.

He hadn’t checked it since the interview.

The words were already out there: dissected, looped, quoted, turned into headlines.

“The Foundation Was a Lie.”

It was trending in a dozen countries, the clips of him saying it had been spliced into fan edits, think pieces, and slowed-down videos with captions like ‘Grace finally breaks his silence.’ He wondered if silence ever really broke, when truly all it did was change its shape.

When the door behind him slid open, he didn’t look back.

“Still awake,” a voice said, it was smooth, wry, and unmistakably amused. Hwaryun stepped out, barefoot, a mug of tea in her hand. Her hair was damp, a few loose strands catching the wind.

“You should sleep,” she said mildly. “But I know you won’t, so I won’t bother pretending to scold you.”

Bam smiled faintly, eyes still on the city. “You saw it?”

“I did,” she said, setting the mug down beside him. Steam curled between them, fragrant and brief. “The world saw it. Half of them think you’re a poet. The other half think you’re declaring war on Jahad Entertainment.”

He sighed, resting his chin on his hand. “Maybe I am.”

Hwaryun tilted her head, studying him. “Are you?”

Bam didn’t answer. The rain had started again, soft and intermittent, tapping against the railing like a slow heartbeat. From the other room came the sound of muffled laughter— Ha Jinsung, no doubt on another late call with the FUG board. A minute later, the door opened and he appeared, expression somewhere between concern and weary affection.

“Do you ever not brood?” he asked, leaning on the doorway.

“Do you ever not lecture?” Bam countered quietly.

“Fair point,” Jinsung said with a small grin. He crossed the room, pulling up a chair beside him. “I assume you’ve seen what they’re saying.”

“Enough,” Bam said.

Jinsung nodded. “Good. Don’t read the rest. It’s noise.”

Hwaryun sipped her tea. “It’s not just noise. It's a movement, people are watching again.”

“People never stopped watching,” Bam murmured. “They just started watching for the wrong reasons.”

Jinsung leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You knew this would happen when you said it, didn’t you?”

Bam hesitated. “Maybe. But I didn’t say it for them.”

“Then who for?” Hwaryun asked softly.

There it was— the question that always came back to him, no matter how far he ran.

Bam looked out over the skyline, the lights smearing faintly through the rain. “For the truth, maybe,” he said. “Or what’s left of it.”

Jinsung studied him for a moment. “The truth doesn’t always need to be broadcast.”

“No,” Bam said, voice distant. “But sometimes it demands to be heard.”

Silence followed; not uncomfortable, but heavy, full of things unsaid.

Hwaryun broke it first. “The concert lineup’s been finalized,” she said. “You’re closing the show. FUG wants something new, something that’ll remind them why you’re still the one everyone listens to.”

Bam’s gaze flicked toward her. “A new song?”

She nodded. “Write it. Perform it. Make them remember.”

Jinsung sighed, rubbing his temple. “She says that like it’s easy.”

“It never was,” Bam said quietly.

He reached for the mug, fingers brushing its warm edge. Inside, the tea had already begun to cool, steam fading into the night air.

His phone buzzed again, the screen lighting briefly before going dark.

[Trending #1: Jue Viole Grace — “The Foundation Was a Lie.”]

Bam didn’t look.

He didn’t need to.

The rain drowned the world’s noise again, leaving only the sound of breath, and beneath it— the faint hum of memory that refused to fade.

8 years ago, Sweet and Sour Apartment.

The city woke early that day, though none of them had really slept.

Their apartment smelled faintly of burnt toast and nerves. Elaine sat cross-legged on the floor beside the heater, blow-drying her hair with one hand and scrolling through the lyrics folder on her phone with the other. The hum of the dryer mixed with the steady rhythm of rain against the window: light, uncertain rain, the kind that couldn’t decide if it wanted to fall or stay.

“Are we really doing this?” Wangnan asked from the couch, voice muffled beneath a pillow.

“You’ve asked that six times,” Elaine said.

“And nobody’s answered me,” he shot back, lifting his head. His hair was a chaotic mix of curls and panic. “Like, seriously. What if we walk in there and they hate us? Or worse— they like us, but not enough? That’s the most humiliating outcome!”

“Relax,” Hockney said without looking up from his sketchbook. “We’re not auditioning for heaven. Just a company run by people who act like gods.”

“Hockney… that’s way fucking worse!” Wangnan said, throwing his pillow at him.

The pillow hit the wall instead, knocking down a faded setlist tacked beside the door, it was the names of old gigs, bars that had closed, streets they no longer played on. The list fluttered to the floor, the ink smudged by time.

Bam was the only one already dressed, sitting quietly by the window with his guitar. The morning light caught on the strings as his fingers traced them without sound. His eyes followed the movement of cars below, the way puddles fractured their reflections.

He’d been up since dawn.

He didn’t tell the others that he’d dreamt of the stage again, not the kind with applause, but the small, humming one from Hongdae. In the dream, the lights never turned on, it was only the echo that remained.

Elaine noticed his silence. “You okay?”

Bam nodded. “Just thinking.”

“That’s never a good sign,” Wangnan muttered, half-smiling. “Thinking leads to existential dread, and we don’t have time for that before breakfast.”

“Let him think,” Hockney said, closing his sketchbook. “He’s the reason we’re even getting through those doors.”

Bam frowned slightly. “We all are.”

“Yeah,” Elaine said softly. “But you’re the one they’ll be listening to first.”

The words landed heavier than she meant them to. For a moment, the room quieted. Even the rain seemed to pause, listening. Bam set the guitar down gently. “We’ll be fine,” he said at last, though his tone carried that small tremor of uncertainty they all heard.

Wangnan clapped his hands once, too loudly. “Okay. Pep talk time. Worst case scenario— we bomb the assessment, get laughed out of the Tower, and go back to playing for free drinks. Best case; we don’t.”

Elaine groaned. “Inspiring as always.”

But they laughed, and that was enough.

⁕

By the time they stepped outside, the rain had stopped. The streets glistened, thin mist curling around their shoes. The Tower was visible even from blocks away, a shard of mirrored glass cutting into the sky, reflecting sunlight like it didn’t belong to the same world. Their cab pulled up and they piled in, crammed and clumsy, the air thick with unspoken things.

Hockney sketched quietly against the window fog, tracing the Tower’s outline. Elaine adjusted her coat three times while Wangnan hummed a nervous rhythm against his knee.

Bam just watched the city pass, all that noise, all that light, and wondered if somewhere behind one of those windows, someone like Khun was watching the same morning from a different angle.

He didn’t know why that thought lingered. Only that it did.

The closer they got to the Tower, the quieter they became. The building loomed, its surface catching every reflection — sky, people, cars — until it looked less like a place and more like an idea. When they stepped out, Bam felt the weight of it settle on his shoulders. Not fear, exactly, just a sense of awareness. The kind you feel before something irreversible.

Wangnan whistled low. “So… we just walk in?”

“Yeah,” Elaine said, gripping the handle of her case a little tighter. “We walk in.”

They did.

The elevator doors closed behind them with a hiss. None of them spoke, the sound of the rising floors, the soft electronic chime, felt like counting down to something they couldn’t name. So when the display hit 47, Bam caught his reflection in the mirrored panel: pale, focused, a stranger who looked too calm to be real.

The elevator doors opened with a soft chime, spilling them once again into the chill of the forty-seventh floor.

The air here always felt too clean and cold enough to remind you who it belonged to. They’d been here before, when everything still felt unreal (it still is). When Khun Aguero Agnis had spoken to them through glass walls and made their nerves sound like potential. When Yuri Jahad had leaned against the console, grinning like a proud troublemaker.

Now, the memory of that day sat heavy in the air, it was familiar, and sharp enough to cut.

“Déjà vu,” Wangnan muttered as he stepped out first, clutching his drumsticks like a talisman. Elaine shot him a look. “Don’t jinx it. This time it’s real.”

“Yeah,” Hockney said quietly, sketchbook under one arm. “Last time was the invitation. This is the test.”

Bam followed last. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes flicked briefly toward the corridor ahead, to the glass room at the end, where he knew the tinted observation window waited. He could already feel Khun’s presence behind it— that same cold, unwavering attention that got to him when he pointed out his voice, when everything changed.

Yuri Jahad was waiting for them again, leaning against the wall like she’d never moved since the last time they saw her. “Look who decided to come back from the dead,” she said, grinning. “Sweet and Sour, round two.”

Elaine laughed, though it came out nervous. “Feels more like round twenty.”

“Good,” Yuri said, straightening. “Means you’re still fighting.” She started walking, heels clicking against the marble floor. “Come on. Khun’s already set up the room. Don’t make him wait, he hates that.”

They followed her down the long corridor. The walls were lined with framed photographs of Jahad Entertainment’s history, there were smiling idols frozen mid-spotlight, platinum plaques gleaming like quiet warnings. None of it felt new, they’d seen it before, but this time the weight of it was heavier, like stepping back into a dream that had learned your name.

Hockney slowed to glance at one photo: Khun Aguero Agnis, Ennacore World Tour. The same picture they’d seen the first time, but under a different light it looked lonelier. The same bowed head, the same ghost of exhaustion hiding behind brilliance.

“He doesn’t look any happier in photographs,” Hockney murmured.

“No one does when they’re a legend,” Elaine said.

“Still scary, though,” Wangnan added. “I bet he memorized all our breathing patterns already.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Bam said softly, half joking, half not.

Yuri heard them and laughed. “He probably did. He’s impossible like that. But that’s why people still follow him into creative suicide.”

As they reached the end of the hall the studio’s door slid open with a gentle hiss and inside, the same room awaited; wide, sterile, echoing faintly with the hum of power. For all its familiarity, it still made their throats dry.

“Set up,” Yuri said, nodding toward their instruments already pre-arranged from the last session. “Khun’ll join you soon. He wanted to watch you start before he walks in.” That sentence alone was enough to make Wangnan drop one of his sticks.

Elaine exhaled, kneeling to check the cables. “Why does it feel worse knowing he’s already here?”

“Because he’s always here,” Hockney said simply, glancing toward the tinted glass above them.

They could see their reflections faintly in it, the four of them, small and restless, against the backdrop of that invisible gaze.

And somewhere beyond that glass, Khun was indeed there— seated, silent, the faint glow of the monitors washing the sharp lines of his face in blue. He didn’t need to speak; the room already knew him.

Down below, Bam adjusted the strap of his guitar, his fingers brushing the same worn grooves that had carried him from Hongdae to here. He wasn’t nervous exactly — just awake in that dangerous way where every thought felt like sound waiting to happen. He looked up, just once, toward the tinted window, but not long enough to see Khun’s face, just enough for the air between them to shift.

Yuri caught it, smirked slightly. “Alright,” she said, checking her watch. “You’ve got fifteen minutes before the real circus begins. Warm up. Breathe. Pretend you’re not being watched.”

“Pretend?” Wangnan echoed.

“That’s show business,” Yuri replied. Then, with a lazy salute, she left.

The door closed behind her and the silence that followed was almost comfortable, almost.

Elaine started the keyboard, letting a soft hum fill the space as Hockney tuned the bass and Wangnan tapped out a rhythm on the rim of the snare. Bam sat for a while, eyes half-closed, listening to the sound of his friends pulling themselves together.

It was the same, and it wasn’t.

They were in the same room as before, but this time, they weren’t just guests.

They were on the edge of something larger— something that would rewrite everything if they survived it, and above them, unseen but listening, Khun Aguero Agnis tilted his head slightly.

He remembered every detail from that night in Hongdae, the way the boy’s voice had cracked, the way it had refused to die. He’d thought he was done being surprised.

He wasn’t.

The silence stretched comfortably at first, the kind that came from routine. Elaine hummed under her breath, letting her fingers glide across the keys, building a soft, uncertain melody that didn’t belong to any song they’d written.

It sounded like something unfinished.

It sounded like them.

Wangnan started drumming along, light taps of the sticks against the edge of the snare — syncopated, off-beat, teasing. “Too slow,” he muttered, falling into rhythm. “You always start too slow.

“It’s called setting a tone,” Elaine replied without looking up.“You wouldn’t understand the tone if it hit you in the face.”

“Debatable,” Wangnan grinned, adding a faster kick just to annoy her.

Hockney glanced up from tuning his bass, watching them with a faint smile.“This is nice,” he said, voice soft. “Feels like home before everything starts to break again.”

Bam chuckled quietly, leaning forward over his guitar. “We haven’t even begun and you’re already poetic.”

“I’m always poetic,” Hockney replied. “I’m just usually ignored.”

Elaine snorted. “You make ignoring you an art form.” It was easy to laugh like that, easier than thinking too hard about where they were, because if they thought about it too much, the walls started to close in.

The room wasn’t large, but it felt vast— like every note, every mistake, could echo forever.

Bam’s fingers brushed the strings once, testing the sound.

It came out low, rich, alive.

He stopped to adjust the tuning peg, frowning slightly. “The acoustics here are different,” he said.

“Feels like the walls are listening.”

“They are,” Elaine murmured. “They’ve heard better musicians than us.”

“Not necessarily,” Wangnan said, twirling his sticks. “Maybe we’re the ghosts haunting it next.”

“That’s comforting,” Hockney deadpanned.

Bam smiled faintly. He couldn’t help it. “Maybe that’s the goal,” he said quietly.

“Leave something behind loud enough to haunt.”

The words hung there longer than they should have and for a moment, no one answered.

Then Elaine said softly, “That’s very you, Bam.” He didn’t respond, he just strummed again, this time finding a chord that filled the space with warmth and ache in equal measure.

It wasn’t Habit, not quite, but it carried its bones: the same confession folded into sound.

And somewhere, Khun heard it through the glass.

The faint distortion of cheap amp cables couldn’t hide what the boy’s voice could do when he wasn’t trying— when he let the music breathe on its own. He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the desk, eyes fixed on the monitor.

⁕

Down below, Wangnan stopped mid-beat when he saw the door handle move, the sound of the latch clicking echoed louder than any note they’d played, As for Elaine, her hands froze above the keys while Hockney lowered down his bass and Bam looked up.

The door opened.

Khun Aguero Agnis stepped inside, composed as ever with a tailored white blouse, sleeves rolled just enough to look unplanned, the faintest trace of fatigue hidden behind precision.

The kind of presence that quieted rooms without effort.

He didn’t say anything at first, he just looked at them— not unkindly, not coldly, just completely. His gaze swept over each of them once, measured, memorizing.

Then it stopped on Bam, and for a moment, the air between them felt like the pause before a downbeat. “You’ve kept busy,” Khun said finally, voice calm, almost conversational, he walked closer, the faint click of his shoes against the floor the only sound.“Good. I was worried the waiting might’ve made you lazy.”

“We don’t get lazy,” Wangnan said before he could stop himself.

Khun’s eyes flicked toward him— brief, assessing —and then back to Bam. “I know,” he said. “That’s why you’re still here.” He crossed to the console, scanning the setup with a practiced glance.

“Play something,” he said simply. “Anything. Don’t think about it.”

Elaine hesitated. “You mean—?”

“I mean,” Khun interrupted, “start before you overthink what I meant.” That was how he worked; the same brutal efficiency that stripped excuses from talent.

Bam nodded once, the quiet leader they always followed even when he didn’t mean to be. “Alright,” he said softly. “From the top.”

The first note rose: warm, searching. Elaine followed, then Hockney, then Wangnan.

Their sound filled the room again, this time steadier, bolder, not defiant, but alive.

Khun listened, unmoving, his expression unreadable. But inside, beneath the practiced calm, something shifted, that same small, dangerous flicker of recognition he’d tried to bury years ago.

They played until the last note faded, and when it did, the silence felt earned.

Khun let it sit a moment before speaking. “Better,” he said quietly. “But you’re still holding back.”

Wangnan frowned. “Holding back what?”

Khun’s gaze lingered on Bam again. “The part of you that hurts,” he said. “You all sound safe. Safe doesn’t sell.” That landed heavy, but not cruel, he wasn’t taunting them, he was telling the truth; the way only someone who’d paid for it could. He stepped closer to the mic stand, adjusting it by instinct. “When you sing,” he continued, “it should feel like the world might end if you stop.” He glanced at Bam, “You used to do that naturally.”

Bam met his eyes, steady. “Maybe the world already did.”

The words slipped out before he could stop them, it was quiet, sharp, and heavier than the air deserved. Elaine’s hands froze over the keys again; Hockney looked away.

Khun didn’t flinch. He just held the gaze a second too long, then he smiled, just a faint one yet unreadable. “Then let’s see if you can end it twice.” He turned back to the console.

“From the bridge,” he said. “Again.”

And without waiting for agreement, he pressed record.

The first chord began again; steady, deliberate. Bam’s fingers found the strings easily, but something in the sound trembled; it wasn’t fear, not exactly, but a kind of restraint.

Khun could hear it immediately, he watched them in silence from behind the console, one hand resting against his chin.

Elaine’s playing was clean, careful.

Hockney’s bass held its usual pulse.

Wangnan, for once, wasn’t showing off.

Technically perfect.

Emotionally hollow.

Khun pressed the talk button, “Stop.” and the music faltered, mid-measure from the sudden command. Elaine turned, brows furrowed. “What now?”

Khun’s tone didn’t change. “You’re still thinking about getting it right.” and then he glanced at Bam. “You don’t perform by precision. You perform by bleeding.”

Wangnan frowned. “We’re not machines, you know. We can’t just—”

“Then don’t,” Khun interrupted smoothly. “You’re human, try sounding like it.” His words weren’t harsh, but they cut anyway, because he wasn’t insulting them, he was seeing them.

Bam lowered his gaze to his guitar. His thumb brushed absently along the edge, tracing the worn wood as if searching for something buried in it, and when he spoke, his voice was low and quiet. “What do you want us to play, then?”

Khun’s eyes didn’t move from him. “Something true.” It was that simple, yet the words hung there like a challenge.

Elaine exchanged a glance with Hockney, then with Bam. “True,” she repeated under her breath. “Right. No pressure.”

Bam exhaled, slow and careful, he didn’t look at any of them, he just closed his eyes and started playing. A different melody this time. Softer. Lower. Something Khun isn't used to hearing before.

The notes were uneven at first, then steadied, not because of confidence, but because of surrender. Elaine followed instinctively, her chords folding beneath his melody like breath, Hockney came next, then Wangnan who was slower this time, but more subdued.

The song built itself from the inside out, fragile and raw, like a heartbeat too close to the surface.

Bam’s voice joined last— barely above a whisper.

I didn’t mean to wake you,

I just forgot how quiet sounds.

Every room still hums your name

Even when you’re not around.

It wasn’t planned.

It wasn’t written.

But when he sang, the air changed.

Khun didn’t move, but he barely breathed. It was happening again, that same impossible gravity that made the room lean toward the sound. Bam’s voice cracked once on the last line, but he didn’t stoped, If anything, he leaned into it, letting the imperfection fill the silence.

If this is peace, it’s cruel,

If this is love, it’s loud.

The song ended not with a chord, but with a quiet exhale, it was like the world itself was letting go while the silence afterward was thick, almost physical.

Khun reached forward and stopped the recording manually, his hand lingering on the button. For a long time, no one said anything.

Then Wangnan broke the spell. “That wasn’t… bad,” he said softly. “What even was that?” Bam looked down at his hands. “Just something I’ve been working on. Nothing finished.”

Elaine stared at him. “You wrote that?”

“Sort of.” He hesitated. “It just… came out.”

Khun leaned back in his chair, studying them, his voice, when it came, was quieter than before. “Keep that one.”

Bam blinked. “What?”

“That song,” Khun said. “Don’t throw it away. It’s the first thing you’ve played today that sounded alive.” The faintest smile ghosted across his face; it was unreadable, half admiration, half of a warning. Then he stood, reaching for his coat draped over the chair.

“Take a break,” he said, tone returning to its usual calm. “You’ll need it.”

Elaine frowned. “Are we done for today?”

“Not yet.” Khun paused by the door. “But sometimes, the best take comes after you stop trying to prove something.” And there, he left without looking back, the door clicked softly behind him while for a long moment, no one moved. There was only the faint hum of the amp filling the room.

Then Wangnan exhaled, dragging a hand down his face. “He’s terrifying.”

“He’s not wrong,” Hockney murmured, still scribbling notes in his sketchbook.

Elaine’s fingers drummed against her mug. “You think he liked it?”

“He told us to keep it,” Wangnan said. “That’s basically his version of a standing ovation.”

Bam didn’t say anything.

He was still staring at the strings of his guitar, his fingers resting where the last note had died. When Elaine noticed, her tone softened. “Hey. You okay?” Bam nodded, just once, barely. “Yeah.” But he didn’t look like it.

Elaine leaned back in a chair, arms crossed, staring at the recording booth. “Do you ever feel like we just got dissected?”

Wangnan groaned, rubbing at his temples. “I feel like we got autopsied.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Hockney muttered, flipping his sketchbook closed. “He just has high standards.”

“‘High standards,’” Wangnan echoed, scoffing. “The man looks at us like he’s mapping out our DNA and deciding which one of us to evolve first.”

Elaine tilted her head. “You say that like it’s not accurate.” That earned a weak laugh. The kind that breaks tension but doesn’t kill it while the silence that followed was softer this time, it was the kind that lets thought seep in.

Bam still hadn’t moved.

He sat on the floor now, back against the glass booth, his guitar beside him, the pick still wedged between his fingers. The others had learned to leave him alone when he got like that; quiet, folded in on himself, half somewhere else.

Wangnan glanced over. “Bam? You've been like that for a while, you sure you're okay?”

He looked up at him, eyes distant but gentle. “Yeah. Just… thinking.”

“About what?”

He hesitated, then, almost sheepishly: “The way he listens.”

That surprised him. “Khun?”

Bam nodded. “He doesn’t just listen to the sound. He listens to what’s missing.” It wasn’t admiration exactly, more like realization upon the whole thing, it was something between curiosity and unease.

Hockney shifted closer, crouching by the couch. “You think that’s good or bad?”

“I don’t know yet,” Bam said honestly.

He smiled faintly, a tired, private kind of smile. “But it’s rare.” Elaine watched him for a moment longer, studying the small tension at the corner of his mouth.

“You think he liked your song?”

Bam’s fingers brushed the guitar strings again, absent. “He said to keep it.”

“That’s basically a love confession from a man like that,” Wangnan said, half-laughing.

“Or a warning,” Hockney countered quietly.

That stopped them all for a moment.

The word warning hung too easily in the air.

Elaine leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “So what do we do now? Wait for round two?” the air in the room thickened. “Pretty much,” Wangnan muttered. “He’s got us wrapped around his perfectly ironed finger.”

“You sound jealous,” Hockney teased.

“I am jealous,” Wangnan shot back. “Of his skincare routine, his vocabulary, and the fact that he can destroy my self-esteem in five sentences.”

Bam laughed softly at that, just a small, genuine one. It broke the heaviness for a second, made the air feel breathable again. “You overanalyze things, stupid things, Wangnan”

Elaine stood, stretching until her shoulders cracked. “Come on. Let’s get food before he calls us back for emotional damage round two.”

Hockney slung his bag over his shoulder. “You mean lunch?”

“I mean coping,” she said. They filed out slowly, the door creaking shut behind them, leaving the studio in its soft, pulsing silence.

But Bam lingered— just a little longer. He crossed the room again, back toward the booth. The glass reflected him faintly; tired eyes, hair mussed from the day, still wearing the faint ghost of a smile. He stepped inside, shut the door, and sat on the stool. The faint smell of static and dust clung to the mic. He leaned toward it, just enough for his breath to fog the metal.

“Something true,” he murmured to himself.

There he realized, it wasn’t just a simple request.

It was more like an expecting command— one that felt heavier than he meant it to be.

Then he turned off the lights, slipped out of the studio, and closed the door.

That night, as Seoul pressed itself into the quiet hours, the old building stayed awake— the monitor light still blinking softly, as if the room itself remembered the song.

[Auto Save Complete: Untitled_001.mp3]

⁕

It was 1:36 PM and the tower was still busy as ever, most of the people on the 47th floor were busy doing whatever errands the higher-ups instructed them to do. Everything had been stressful for everyone lately and there was barely any time for lunch on that floor.

Khun hadn’t moved from his seat.

He sat alone in the control room, jacket off, sleeves rolled, a single lamp painting long, sharp lines across his face. His phone lay face-down beside the monitor, there were dozens of unread messages, none of which mattered.

A cup of coffee sat untouched, gone cold an hour ago and on the screen, a waveform pulsed faintly, still recording when no one meant it to. He hadn’t realized until he replayed the session files that the mics had caught Bam’s “private” take — the one he thought no one would hear.

Khun leaned forward, elbows on his knees, listening.

At first, it was just a breath. Then—

A quiet strum.

A voice that came in too soft to be sure it was intentional.

“Something true,” Bam murmured.

Then a melody came, it was fractured, half-formed, but enough to make the air in the room feel heavier.

Khun curiously listened in.

The song wasn’t complete; it didn’t even have lyrics past the first verse. But what was there… it wasn’t just sound. It was something raw, so raw it felt wrong to listen to it alone.

He scrubbed the cursor back, played it again.

Then again.

Each time, the silence after felt longer. Khun’s reflection wavered in the glass— sharp suit, tired eyes, the faint twitch of a frown he didn’t bother to hide. He’d worked with hundreds of voices before. Voices that sold records, that filled stadiums, that bent to whatever sound the market demanded.

But this one—

This one didn’t bend.

It pulled.

It was the kind of voice that didn’t seek perfection, it sought truth, even if it hurt for it. And Khun, for all his precision and structure, knew exactly how dangerous that was.

He leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping absently against the desk, he could already hear the potential. The arrangement forming in his head. The kind of song that didn’t just hit charts— it rewrote them.

And yet, for the first time in years, he didn’t feel like the one in control. “Something true,” he repeated under his breath. The words sat strange in his mouth, like a confession he hadn’t meant to make.

He played the clip one more time, this time closing his eyes.

The guitar came first, it was softer and much more deliberate compared to what he had listened to from the clips and recordings Yuri had sent. Then that voice again, trembling but steadying, threading through silence like it was born from it.

There it was; the quiet, dangerous kind of brilliance that made people follow, even when they knew they shouldn’t.

When the last note faded, Khun opened his eyes slowly, the room felt colder.

He reached for his pen, scribbling on a scrap of paper beside the console:

Project — Session Notes

Artist: Twenty-fifth Bam

Tone: far too unguarded.

Keep recording. Don’t let him overthink.

Don’t let him realize how loud it really is.

He stared at the note for a while, then underlined that last line twice. When he finally stood, his reflection followed him in the glass, all clean lines and calculation, but with something restless underneath. He turned off the monitor, but the hum in the room didn’t fade as it stayed, faint and persistent, like a song half-finished. Khun paused at the door, glancing back once.

The red recording light blinked once — a pulse. Alive.

“You’re interesting,” he murmured. “And I’m going to make you unforgettable.” Then he reached out to his phone, typing in a number that Yuri had given him.

The café outside the tower

The café wasn’t anything special. It was narrow, half-lit, a little too cold for how warm it tried to be. The kind of place that smelled of espresso grounds and wet pavement, its windows fogged from the humidity outside. Sweet and Sour had taken over the table in the far corner, the one that looked directly toward the Tower— its glass silhouette cutting the horizon like an accusation.

Lunch had been loud at first, a way to chase off the silence that still clung to them after the session. But by the time the plates were half-empty, their voices had begun to fade. Wangnan tapped his chopsticks against an empty cup, off-beat and impatient. “So,” he said finally, “was it just me, or did that man scare the life out of everyone in the room?”

Elaine didn’t look up from her mug. “That man produces half the country’s top charts. You think he got there by being friendly?”

Hockney was sketching again: the corner of a stage light, a microphone cord looping like a vein. “Friendly isn’t the word,” he said, pencil gliding across the napkin. “He watches people the way surgeons watch patients, not to hurt them, just to see what’s underneath.”

Bam had been quiet the whole time. He sat by the window, hands around his cup, watching the Tower’s reflection ripple through the drizzle on the glass. He didn’t look scared, just far away, like his thoughts were orbiting something the rest of them couldn’t see.

“Still thinking about the session?” Elaine asked.

He blinked, as if dragged back. “A little.”

“Don’t,” Wangnan said. “We survived. Barely. That’s worth celebrating.”

Bam smiled faintly, but it didn’t last. The rain had started again; light, steady, drumming against the glass. Outside, traffic blurred into silver lines. For a moment, it almost sounded like applause. Then, a ring came from Bam’s phone.

The screen glowed with a number none of them recognized — no name, no photo, just a clean line of digits. For a second, he thought it might be a mistake. Then, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew it wasn’t.

“Unknown number?” Wangnan asked, already reaching for another fry.

Bam didn’t answer right away. The phone kept vibrating, steady, rhythmic like it was waiting for him to move first.

He picked it up. “Hello?” Static. Then a breath.

“Still here?” He said,

“Are you finished eating?”

Bam froze. The café noise seemed to fade around him. “...Yes.”

“Good,” Khun said. “Come back.”

Bam blinked. “Now?”

“You left something unfinished.”

The line clicked dead before he could reply.

Elaine groaned. “Seriously?”

“Of course it’s him,” Wangnan muttered. “Does that man even eat?”

Hockney slid his sketchbook into his bag and stood. “We should go before he decides to come get us.” With that, they left their half-finished lunch behind. Outside, the afternoon had cooled. The air was sharp, tinted with the aftertaste of rain. The Tower loomed just a few blocks away— not towering anymore, but waiting.

⁕

Jahad Entertainment, 47th floor

The forty-seventh floor was quieter than before, the soundproofing swallowed their footsteps, and even the hum of the elevator seemed to dim as they walked down the hallway. The studio door was closed, the red “in use” light above it glowed faintly. Bam hesitated, hand hovering over the handle, Elaine noticed and nudged him gently. “You first, maestro.” He gave a quiet exhale and pushed the door open.

Khun stood there; pale light catching on the edge of his shirt sleeve as he rolled it back down. The air around him smelled faintly of ozone and coffee, the signature scent of long studio hours.

“You came earlier than expected,” he said without looking at them, turning back to the console. “Good.” Khun hummed faintly, as if that settled it. “Set your things down. I’m not keeping you long.”

The room looked exactly as they’d left it, but it felt heavier; a little too still, a little too watchful. On the central screen, a waveform was paused mid-loop and even before Bam looked closely, he knew what it was.

His voice.

Khun pressed a key, and the snippet played.

“Something true…”

It echoed once, soft and fractured, like a ghost caught between walls.

Elaine shot Bam a glance. He didn’t return it.

Khun stopped the playback and finally looked up. “You left that in my archive.”

“That wasn’t—”

“I know,” Khun interrupted. “But it’s better than the rest.”

He leaned against the console, folding his arms. “You said something in that take that you didn’t in any of the others.”

Bam frowned. “I wasn’t saying anything. I was testing the mic.”

Khun gave a small, knowing smile. “No one tests a mic with such honesty.” The words hung there, quietly unsettling.

Elaine tried to cut in. “Khun, if this is about—”

“It’s not,” he said quickly, his focus never leaving Bam. “This isn’t about polish or production. It’s about the thing you almost said and didn’t.”

Bam swallowed. The others watched, unsure if they were witnessing a conversation or a reckoning.

Khun nodded toward the booth. “Go in.”

Bam blinked. “Now?”

“Yes.”

Wangnan muttered, “Here we go again.”

Khun’s gaze flicked briefly toward him. “If you’re tired, there’s the door.”

That shut him up.

Bam sighed, pushing himself up. The motion felt heavier than it should have. He walked past Khun, through the door, into the booth.

Inside, it was quiet. It was the kind of quiet that made you hear your own heartbeat. The mic stood waiting, the reflection of the red standby light catching in the glass. Khun’s voice came through the intercom, calm as ever. “Play something. Don’t think.” Bam adjusted the strap on his guitar. “You’re not giving me much direction.”

“I am,” Khun said. “You’re just not used to freedom.” The words stung a little, not because they were harsh, but because they were true.

Bam plucked a few strings, let them hum. Then, without warning, the music found him again.

Not rehearsed, not measured, it was just movement, instinct.

He began softly, half-speaking, half-singing.

The lights don’t wait for us to shine,

They just burn until we do.

His voice was rough, but steady. The sound filled the booth, low and alive and outside the glass, Khun stood still. His eyes followed every breath, every tremor in the tone.

If I tell the truth, will it still be ours,

Or does it stop belonging to you?

It wasn’t perfect. It didn’t need to be, and when he stopped, there was only the soft hum of the amp left behind.

Khun didn’t speak for a long time. Then, finally: “That’s it.”

Bam looked up. “You’re recording?”

“I was always recording.”

Bam exhaled, half a laugh. “You never stop, do you?”

Khun tilted his head. “Neither do you.”

The silence that followed wasn’t tense— just full. Heavy with something that didn’t have a name yet.

Khun stepped closer to the glass. “You don’t have to be perfect,” he said quietly. “You just have to be honest.” It wasn’t instruction anymore. It sounded almost like concern, and that was new. Then he straightened, the moment gone as quickly as it appeared. “That’ll be all for today.”

Elaine blinked. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Khun said, gathering his notes as he nodded toward Bam.

“What—?” Wangnan started, but Khun was already turning off the board.

“Session’s over,” he said simply.

“...About us” Wangnan muttered to himself, the session is really over and they just watched Bam sang.

“Be back in two days, 2PM sharp. I’ll meet with you, Miss Yuri Jahad will spare you the information.” Khun said sharply, and they all filed out after, the sound of the closing door swallowed by the hum of the studio’s lights. Bam was the last to leave. Before he stepped out, he glanced back through the small window in the door.

Khun was still there, standing in the same spot, staring at the empty booth like it had just told him a secret he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear.

Outside, the rain had returned— quiet, insistent, threading through the city’s neon. Khun stared at the console, just meters still pulsing gently from the last playback, Bam’s voice frozen mid-phrase on the waveform.

He didn’t move for a long time.

Until his phone started ringing, the screen lighting up with a name he knew too well.

Maschenny.

Khun hesitated, just long enough to let the thought cross his mind that he didn’t want to pick up. But then, eventually, he did.

“Don’t tell me you’re still at work,” she said immediately, her tone half amusement, half warning.

“I don’t tell you what to do with your wars,” Khun said dryly. “Don’t tell me what to do with my projects.”

“Don’t get defensive,” she said. “I saw the schedule update. Two sessions in one day? That’s new for you.”

“Some things don’t wait for tomorrow.”

“Or some people,” she countered. He could hear her smile through the line. “I heard you found your voice again. Or should I say— his?”

Khun didn’t answer.

Maschenny laughed softly. “You don’t like it when I’m right. You never did.”

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing urgent,” she said. “Just curious. You disappear for months, then suddenly your studio logs start lighting up again; all centered around one name. Thought I’d check if the rumors were true.”

“Rumors? Please, it's just a new project I’m working with.”

“Oh, this isn’t just a project,” Maschenny purred. “I heard things, Aguero. A boy with a voice that can make even Jahad himself pause a meeting? That’s a new one.”

Khun froze. “Jahad heard about this?, word does travel fast.”

“They do when they come from him.” Maschenny laughed softly, like the idea of fear amused her. “He hears about everything that moves the ground under his Tower. Don’t look so surprised, the moment someone sings like that under our roof, the gods start listening.”

Khun leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “Then maybe they should stop.”

“You can’t stop a storm by whispering to it,” Maschenny said.

Her tone softened, only slightly. “Just make sure you’re not standing too close when it breaks, they say you’ve found a singer who reminds you why you started this in the first place.”

There was a pause; too short to be silence, too long to be denial.

“And you believe them almost immediately?”

Maschenny’s voice softened, barely. “You always had a weakness for honesty, little brother. Dangerous thing, honesty. You give it a stage, and it starts asking for a crown.”

Khun’s hand tightened around the pen. “If this is about the board—”

“It’s not,” she said quickly. “It’s about you. And about what happens when the boy with the truth starts to outshine the man who found him.”

He said nothing.

Her tone turned lighter, almost teasing again. “Careful, Aguero. I’ve warned you about this days ago. You’ve built empires before. Don’t forget how fast they burn when you start believing in them.”

The line went quiet for a beat. Rain pressed faintly against the window; it was thin, persistent, and steady.

Khun finally said, “Goodnight, Maschenny.”

“Goodnight?” she echoed. “Oh, Aguero. You’re not sleeping tonight.”

The line clicked dead.

Khun stood there a while longer, the silence pressing against him.

⁕

Sweet and Sour Apartment

The afternoon sunlight slanted through the blinds, cutting the small apartment into strips of gold and shadow. The usual noise of the city—vendors shouting, cars honking, a bus sighing at the stop below—felt oddly distant, like the world was moving a beat slower than usual.

Sweet and Sour were scattered around the room, pretending to rest but failing at it. Elaine was at the kitchen counter, watching the slow drip of coffee fill a chipped mug. Wangnan sat upside down on the couch, his feet pressed against the backrest as he scrolled through his phone for the tenth time, sighing every few seconds. Hockney was sketching again, and this time, an abstract mess of lines that didn’t look like anything but felt like something.

Bam sat by the window, guitar resting against his knee, fingers idly tracing the strings but never strumming. The Tower loomed beyond the glass, its mirrored surface catching the sunlight like it was keeping secrets.

When his phone started vibrating, he didn’t even need to check who it was.

“Miss Yuri,” he greeted, voice even. The call was on loud speaker for everyone in the apartment to hear.

“You sound calm,” she said. Her tone carried the kind of amusement that came from knowing better. “That’s good. Keep it that way tomorrow.”

Bam glanced at the others. “Well Khun did tell me that you'd give us the information for tomorrow, a reminder call?”

“More or less,” she said. “Khun’s already finalized the presentation outline. You’ll meet him at the Tower, sixty-fifth floor conference studio 3B to the right, two o’clock sharp. Be on time, the Khuns hate waiting. Especially Khun Eduan”

That made Elaine look up instantly, “Did she just say—Eduan?”

Bam didn’t answer, but Yuri must’ve heard her through the speaker.

“Yes, that Eduan,” she confirmed, unbothered. “Great ten, board of directors, shareholder representative, occasional god of lightning when someone wastes his time. You’ll be fine.”

“Fine?” Wangnan mouthed, horrified as he got up from the couch.

“Don’t overthink it,” Yuri continued, her tone turning clipped, professional now. “It’s not a live audition. You won’t have to play anything unless they ask. Khun’s handling the materials, all the clips, edits, stats. You’re just there as yourselves.”

“As ourselves,” Elaine echoed. “That’s comforting.”

“It should be,” Yuri said. Then, quieter, “They already know who you are. They’ve seen the footage, heard the raw takes. Tomorrow’s about how you carry it. Eyes up, words clear. No one wants to sign a ghost.”

There was a pause, just long enough for Bam to realize she was saying more than she could spell out. “Is there something else I should know?” he asked.

Yuri hesitated. Then, her voice softened, losing its usual iron edge. “Just… be careful about what you show them. Talent makes people curious. Curiosity isn’t always kind.”

Bam frowned slightly. “Miss Yuri—”

“That’s all,” she said quickly. “Get some rest. You’ll need it. The floor’s bigger than it looks.”

The line went dead.

The apartment fell silent for a moment—just the faint hum of the city outside, the soft clink of Elaine setting her mug down. Finally, Wangnan groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I’m not made for this level of anxiety.”

“You’re not made for waking up before noon either,” Elaine muttered.

Hockney didn’t look up from his sketchbook. “She said Eduan. As in Khun Eduan.”

Bam nodded slowly, still staring out the window. “Yeah.”

“Then this isn’t just a meeting,” Elaine said, half to herself.

“No,” Bam said quietly. His reflection stared back at him from the glass—steady, unreadable. “It’s a test.”

⁕

Jahad Entertainment, The 65th Floor

The elevator hummed softly as it climbed. It was smooth, mechanical, mercilessly slow.

No one spoke for the first twenty floors.

Elaine shifted her weight from one foot to the other, watching the floor numbers flicker on the panel. “Why do the high floors always feel like they take longer?” she muttered. “Because they do,” Wangnan said, straightening the cuff of his jacket for the fourth time. “It’s their way of intimidating you before you even arrive.”

“Seems to be working,” Hockney murmured, tucking his sketchbook under his arm. His reflection in the mirrored walls looked calmer than he felt. Bam stood at the back, hands in his pockets, staring at his faint reflection. The lights overhead turned his face pale, almost ghostlike. He hadn’t said a word since they entered the Tower lobby — just a quiet nod when the receptionist directed them toward the upper levels.

“Do you think he’s already there?” Elaine asked.

Bam didn’t look up. “He’s always there before anyone else.”

Wangnan let out a dry laugh. “Of course he is. Man probably sleeps plugged into a mixing board.”

The elevator dinged softly as it passed the 60th floor, then again at the 65th. The doors opened with a hiss, and for a moment, none of them moved.

The hallway stretched ahead, pristine and white, lined with dark glass that reflected the city far below. The air smelled faintly of ozone and polish; the expensive kind of clean that came from never being used. Elaine was the first to step out. Her heels clicked against the marble, echoing too loudly. “Room to the right, right?”

“Right,” Hockney said, scanning the doors until he spotted it — Conference Studio 3B. A single plaque, brushed steel with the Jahad Entertainment insignia etched faintly beneath.

Bam reached for the handle, hesitated for half a heartbeat, then pushed it open.

The room was wide and cold, not sterile, just exact. A long glass table ran through the center, surrounded by high-backed chairs. At the far end, a projection screen glowed faintly with the paused title of a presentation: SWEET & SOUR — INITIAL REVIEW / PRODUCER: KHUN AGUERO AGNIS.

Khun stood by the console, sleeves rolled up, his expression the same as it always was: calm enough to make the rest of the world feel unsteady. He looked up when they entered.

“Right on time.”

Elaine let out a quiet breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “We almost got lost,” she said lightly.

Khun’s gaze flicked briefly toward her, then to the clock. “Almost doesn’t count here.”

Wangnan raised an eyebrow. “Friendly as ever, I see.”

“Professional as always,” Khun corrected, returning to the console. “Sit. We don’t have much time.” With that, the group took their seats. They were hesitant at first, like guests in a house they weren’t sure they were welcome in.

The hum of the city below seemed to fade as the door shut behind them. The air carried the faint scent of coffee and something sharper like metal, maybe, or rain.

Bam sat nearest the end, across from Khun. Their eyes met for a second, brief but charged. “You look less tense than yesterday,” Khun said quietly, scanning through a tablet. Bam shrugged. “Got used to it.” Khun gave the smallest hint of a smile, not warmth, but acknowledgment. “Don’t. Complacency kills sound.”

“Good morning to you too,” Elaine muttered under her breath.

Khun ignored her, pressing a few keys on the console. The large screen flickered, bringing up stills and waveforms— snippets of yesterday’s session, the soft pulse of audio captured mid-breath.

“Before we begin,” Khun said, tone even, “this meeting is being logged for the board. Keep your answers precise.”

“Logged?” Wangnan repeated. “Like recorded?”

Khun glanced at him. “Everything worth keeping is.”

That shut him up.

He turned back to the screen. “We’ll run through three segments before the directors arrive. One: the compiled rehearsal clips. Two: vocal analysis. Three: audience positioning. You don’t need to speak unless addressed.”

Elaine leaned back, folding her arms. “So we’re props?”

Khun paused. “No,” he said softly. “You’re proof.”

That made her blink.

The room went quiet again, that kind of quiet that buzzed just under the skin. Outside, the floor-to-ceiling windows framed the skyline like a painting, the city already starting to shimmer under the late morning sun. Inside, Khun’s fingers moved with clinical precision over the console, queuing up the first video file. The screen shifted, the familiar flicker of the studio, Bam’s voice filling the air again, raw and unfiltered.

It was strange, hearing it up here; the same sound that had once felt intimate now echoing across glass walls and polished tables.

No one spoke.

Not even Khun.

When the clip ended, the silence it left behind felt deliberate, almost reverent. Then Khun looked up, his gaze sweeping across them. “That,” he said quietly, “is what they’ll see first.”

Wangnan swallowed. “And after that?”

Khun’s eyes flicked toward the door— the one that would soon open to the board, to Eduan, to Jahad’s royalty.

“After that,” he said, voice steady, “We find out if they’re listening.” The clock on the wall ticked once, sharp against the silence. Outside, clouds began to gather — the kind that promised rain later, or something heavier.

Then, the door opened.

Ha Yuri Jahad entered first, crisp and smiling, glancing at Bam while keeping a professional look. Evan trailed after her, tablet in hand, already recording. Behind them came Maschenny, her long blue hair shining in the subdued room — followed by Khun Eduan — the kind of presence that didn’t just enter a room, it rearranged it. The air seemed to tighten around him, gravity recalibrating to his pace. Power clung to him like a second skin; even the lights overhead hummed quieter, as if afraid to interrupt.

Every member of Sweet and Sour instinctively straightened.

“Don’t,” Khun murmured under his breath. “They’ll smell fear.”

“Too late,” Wangnan whispered back.

Yuri took her seat, tossing a look at Khun. “Running your own boardroom now?”

He didn’t rise to the jab. “Merely preparing the presentation.”

Maschenny smiled as she took the chair beside her father. “And here I thought you didn’t do reunions.”

Khun’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

Eduan looked down the table with his gaze cold, assessing. When his eyes landed on the group, it was like being pinned under glass.

“These are the ones?” he asked.

Khun nodded. “Sweet and Sour.”

Maschenny leaned forward, her elbows resting lightly on the table. “Well then,” she said. “Let’s see if the name’s as ridiculous as it sounds.” The lights dimmed again, and the screen brightened — the first frame of the performance video filling the space with color.

Khun didn’t look away from the screen.

Neither did Bam.

But between them, something had already started to tighten; invisible, inevitable.

The video ended with a single sustained note, Bam’s voice fading into reverb before the screen dimmed back to gray. For a moment, no one moved. The silence that followed wasn’t emptiness; it was weight, deliberate and waiting to see who would speak first.

Khun broke it.

“The footage you’ve seen was recorded within two sessions. Minimal editing. No preamp filters, no AI mastering.” He clicked to the next slide: four photos of the group, lined side by side. “The group is known as Sweet & Sour. Formed three years ago. Independent roughly until 2 weeks ago.”

Maschenny leaned back, interest flickering in her eyes. “Three years? They sound newer.” Yuri glanced at her, “They sound like fresh talent, you mean.”

“They adapt,” Khun replied simply. “That’s what drew my attention.”

Maschenny’s gaze drifted to the screen, then back to the people sitting at the far end of the table. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes — bright and dangerous — were already dissecting them.

“And which of them,” she asked lazily, “Is responsible for that voice? Pretty sure that's what caught you the most.”

Khun didn’t need to answer. Everyone’s attention was already on Bam.

He met the stares evenly, expression calm. Maybe too calm.

Maschenny tilted her head, studying him the way someone studies a reflection they didn’t expect to see. “You look young.”

“Eighteen,” Bam replied quietly.

Her smile curved; not cruel, just deliberate. “Eighteen,” she echoed. “Same as Aguero.”

A pause, her gaze flicking briefly toward her brother before returning to Bam. “Funny. Two of you at the same age, already carrying the weight of things you shouldn’t.”

“Maschenny,” Yuri sighed, though her tone was indulgent.

Khun cleared his throat lightly, cutting through the tension. “As for the others,” he continued, moving to the next slide.

“Hockney — Bassist, composer, and visual designer. Wangnan — percussion and production assist.”

Wangnan raised a small wave that immediately wilted under Eduan’s flat look.

Khun’s gaze shifted to the last profile. “Elaine Lo Po Bia — pianist, secondary vocals, arrangement.” That was the mistake.

He hadn’t meant to say the surname aloud, but formality had a way of slipping the tongue into protocol. The effect was immediate.

Maschenny’s head turned sharply, the lazy amusement in her face tightening into focus. “What did you just say?”

Khun hesitated for a moment. “Elaine Lo Po Bia,” he repeated, tone controlled. “Her registration listed no active House affiliation.”

Maschenny’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Lo Po Bia doesn’t take kindly to abandonment.”

Elaine stiffened, her knuckles whitening against the table edge. “I’m aware.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Maschenny said, the words soft as silk and twice as cutting. “Your family made quite the noise when they severed your line. Something about disobedience, wasn’t it?”

Khun shot her a sharp look. “This isn’t relevant to—”

“It’s relevant,” Maschenny interrupted, her tone cool. “Blood has a way of leaking into art, doesn’t it?”

Eduan’s voice cut through the air; low, heavy, and final. “Enough.”

Maschenny went still, though her smile didn’t falter.

Eduan turned to Khun. “We’re not here to indulge your sister’s gossip. Continue.”

Khun nodded once, the muscle in his jaw flexing. “Of course.”

He clicked to the next slide: a series of live crowd photos, numbers, and analytics, it was the growing traction Sweet & Sour had gathered from Hongdae to Busan.

“They’ve built a following of sincerity,” Khun said. “There’s precision in their imperfection, something you can’t train into a group.”

Yuri leaned forward. “And what exactly are you proposing we do with them?” Before Khun could answer, the door opened again— a quiet reminder of how easily power entered the room unannounced.

A single attendant stepped in, whispering something to Evan, who made a note on his tablet.

Khun waited until the interruption faded before turning back to the board.

“What I’m proposing,” he said carefully, “is division.”

The word landed like glass cracking.

Wangnan frowned. “Division?”

Elaine’s gaze snapped toward him, eyes narrowing. “What does that mean?”

Khun didn’t look at them. His focus stayed on the screen, on the slide titled Projection: Market Viability (Solo vs. Group).

He pressed a key, and two columns appeared — one labeled Sweet & Sour, the other simply Twenty-fifth Baam.

“Twenty-Fifth Baam,” Khun said quietly. “Solo artist, under the same label. His voice has outgrown the limitations of a four-person dynamic. Separating him would not weaken the group — it would redefine both entities.”

Bam stared at him, something unreadable in his eyes.

Khun continued, tone steady. “Meanwhile, Sweet & Sour will receive a new contract, independent production oversight, and immediate funding for their debut as a self-contained act. They’ve proven cohesion, adaptability, and chemistry worth cultivating.”

Eduan nodded slowly, eyes gleaming. “Calculated. Profitable. Now you're thinking like a producer, Aguero.”

Maschenny tilted her head toward Khun, voice sweet with malice. “And it's quite convenient, isn’t it? Two projects with one under your name.”

Khun met her gaze, expression flat. “It’s about efficiency, not ego.”

Yuri crossed her arms. “And does the boy know?”

Bam looked down, hands clasped tightly. “Now I do.”

The silence that followed was deep enough to drown in.

Eduan leaned back, thoughtful. “Interesting. Two directions, one from sentiment, one from survival.”

He looked at Khun. “We’ll hear the boy, then.”

Khun blinked. “Pardon?”

Eduan gestured toward Bam. “He’s the product, isn’t he? Let’s test the goods. Sing something.”

Khun froze. It wasn’t the request itself that unsettled him; it was how casually his father said it.

Like it was nothing.

Like asking someone to open a window.

Across the table, Bam straightened in his chair. The stillness in him was almost unnerving— like he had already accepted something the rest of them hadn’t yet caught up to.

Khun’s voice was measured when he spoke. “Chairman, this meeting is for review, not—”

Eduan raised one hand. The motion was small, but final. “Don’t hide the truth behind formality, Aguero. If what you’re showing us is real, it will hold.”

Khun’s jaw tightened. “He’s not a product.”

Maschenny’s lips curved faintly. “He is now,” she said. “Everything under this roof is.”

The air in the room shifted. Even Yuri’s smile faded.

Bam’s chair scraped softly as he stood. “It’s fine.” His voice was quiet but sure. “If this is what it takes, I’ll sing.”

Elaine started to protest, “Bam, you don’t have to—” yet he only gave a small, reassuring look before stepping forward.

Khun watched him move. The way he walked was calm and unhurried; it was the same way he had in the studio, as if the ground adjusted itself to him rather than the other way around.

The city stretched out behind the glass walls, Seoul’s skyline pale and burning in the noon light. It made the room feel like it was suspended above the world — nowhere and everywhere at once.

Bam stopped near the window. For a moment, no one breathed.

Then, softly

The rain keeps falling even after it forgets your name, And I keep singing like I’m the one who stayed.

The first line was small, almost hesitant, but the sound spread through the room like smoke that's gentle, invisible, and impossible to escape. He didn’t need a mic, the walls caught the sound for him.

If I’m just an echo, don’t answer. I’ve already learned what silence costs.

The words hung in the air, raw and deliberate. They weren’t lyrics from anything he’d recorded — not yet, anyway it was impromptu and still the words were his.

Eduan’s expression didn’t move, but his eyes had sharpened. Maschenny leaned forward slightly, her posture deceptively lazy, like a serpent about to coil.

And Khun — Khun couldn’t look away. He’d heard this voice in every possible condition: tired, hoarse, breaking. But this again felt different; it was a new kind of “dangerously beautiful,” like a truth said out loud in a place built to erase it.

When the last note faded, the silence it left behind was almost unbearable.

Yuri was the first to speak, her voice low. “Well,” she said. “You don’t get that kind of sound from lessons.”

Maschenny’s tone came next, soft, unreadable. “No. You get it from loss.”

Eduan exhaled, the sound more like a decision than a breath. “That’ll do.”

He turned to Khun. “You’ve proven your point. Send the files to the board. We’ll review the proposal formally.” Then, to Bam: “Congratulations. If you’re half as good under pressure as you are in the dark, you’ll go far.”

Bam nodded, unsure if it was a compliment.

Eduan continued, “Once the board finalizes the division, both acts will begin effective training under the Tower’s jurisdiction. An apartment will be provided on the fifty-sixth floor — restricted access, supervised schedule. You’ll report to your producer.”

Khun inclined his head slightly. “Understood.”

Eduan stood, the motion smooth, final— the signal that the meeting was over. “Yuri, Maschenny. Stay behind for a moment.”

Khun knew what that meant: debrief. Discussion. Politics. He didn’t want Bam anywhere near it.

He turned to the group. “You’re dismissed. Yuri’s assistant will give you the follow-up schedule.”

Elaine hesitated, glancing between him and the others, but Bam gave a small nod. “Come on,” he said quietly.

As they left, the heavy door closed behind them with a soft thud.

The room exhaled.

Khun stayed where he was. Maschenny was still watching him, not like a sister, not even like a rival. Like a predator who’d just found the thread of something fragile.

“Division,” she said again, almost to herself. “You really are your father’s son.”

Khun’s eyes flicked toward her. “And you’re still too fond of blood.”

Her smile widened, slow, deliberate. “We all are.”

Eduan turned toward the window, hands clasped behind his back. “Keep your emotions out of this, both of you. The board will approve the split. It’s a sound move.” He looked back at Khun. “Make sure the transition’s clean. No noise.”

Khun met his gaze. “There’s always noise.”

Eduan’s smile was small, tired, knowing. “Then make it music.”

⁕

Outside the Boardroom

The door shut behind them with a muffled click that sounded too gentle for what it meant and just for a moment, no one spoke. The air outside the meeting room felt thinner, the kind that made you suddenly aware of every breath you took.

Down the hall, the glass walls framed the city like a slow-moving ocean; full of motion but impossibly distant.

Elaine was the first to move. She ran a hand through her hair, her expression somewhere between disbelief and anger. “So that just happened,” she said finally.

Wangnan barked out a laugh that didn’t sound like one. “’That’ being what exactly? The part where we got split in half, or the part where a royal family of the Tower just watched Bam audition like some kind of performing miracle?”

“Don’t,” Bam said quietly.

Wangnan turned toward him. “Don’t what?”

“Make it sound smaller than it is,” Bam said, voice low. “You heard what they said. This isn’t over.”

“Yeah,” Wangnan muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets. “That’s the problem.”

Hockney had stayed quiet through it all, sketchbook tucked under his arm, eyes lost somewhere between the reflections on the glass.

Finally, he said, “They didn’t even ask us if we wanted it.”

Elaine gave a bitter laugh. “They don’t ask. They decide. We just… get processed.” The elevator doors opened with a soft chime, interrupting the conversation. They stepped inside, the four of them, the mirrored walls catching their faces in fragmented reflections.

For a moment, they looked like a group again. But only for a moment.

The doors slid shut, and the silence closed in.

The descent began.

The numbers ticked down slowly — 65… 64… 63…

Wangnan leaned back against the railing. “So,” he said, voice carefully neutral, “you knew about this?”

Bam didn’t look at him. “I knew about the meeting. Not what they’d decide.”

Elaine scoffed softly. “Sure sounds like Khun did.”

That made Bam look up. “He didn’t tell me either.”

“Right,” she said. “Because you two are just as lost as the rest of us.”

Something in her tone cracked a little, enough to make the air tighten.

Hockney stepped in before it got worse. “It’s not his fault. You saw the way they looked at him, at all of us. This wasn’t a negotiation. It was a coronation.”

The word hit the air like a spark.

Elaine pressed her lips together, looking away. Wangnan muttered something under his breath that no one caught.

The elevator kept humming.

62… 61… 60…

Then, quietly, Bam said, “We’ll still be together. Just… differently.”

“Differently,” Elaine echoed, shaking her head. “That’s one way to say it.”

No one answered.

When the doors opened again, they were met with the soft murmur of the Tower’s lower floors — office staff, footsteps, the faint hiss of coffee machines.

It all sounded too normal. Too human for what had just happened above.

Outside, the city was caught between afternoon and evening, the light a fading gold against the skyline.

Their assigned guide — Evan, a man in a black uniform — was waiting by the corridor. He held out a folder.

“Your transfer documents,” he said. “The apartment on the fifty-sixth floor will be ready by morning. Please report there by ten hundred hours. Training begins Monday.”

No one moved to take it. Finally, Hockney reached out and accepted it wordlessly. The man nodded once and walked away.

For a long while, they just stood there; four silhouettes in the glass reflection, caught between pride and exhaustion. Elaine was the first to break it. “Training under the Tower,” she said softly. “They make it sound like an honor.”

Bam’s gaze lingered on the skyline. “Maybe it is.”

“Or maybe,” she said, “it’s just another way to keep you where they can watch.”

That one landed, not with anger, but with the kind of truth that didn’t need defending.

The others started walking toward the exit.Bam stayed behind for just a moment longer, staring at the city’s reflection in the glass.

It shimmered faintly, lights flickering against the clouds. For a moment, it almost looked like the Tower itself was breathing.

Then he turned and followed.

The doors slid shut behind him, sealing the echo of their footsteps in the hall.

By the time they reached the lobby, the rain had started again (it's been raining lately, he thinks)— it was soft, unhurried, the kind that blurs the line between endings and beginnings.

Above them, somewhere past the glass and steel, the sixty-fifth floor kept its lights on.

Deals were already being signed. Futures already rearranged.

And far below, in the glow of the city that never truly slept, Sweet & Sour stepped out into the storm — no longer a band, not yet strangers, walking toward a future none of them had agreed to but all of them would have to survive.

Chapter Text

Present Day —

Khun Aguero Agnis had survived two weeks of spotless PR behavior — long enough for Maschenny to decide he could be released into the public eye without spontaneously burning the family name to the ground. Yet.

So now he was here: sitting beneath too-bright studio lights beside his only tolerable sibling, Ran, while pretending the coffee in his hand didn’t taste like corporate obedience.

The interview went smoothly at first, he kept his answers sharp, his posture sharper.

He talked about The 25th Hour album.

Avoided anything involving emotions.

Smiled exactly 1.5 times.

Then the real reason they were invited slid into view.

The interviewer straightened her cards — the universal sign for now we get messy.

“Producer Khun,” she began, tone sugary but eyes bright with hunger, “recent statements imply that Mr. Grace has refused all offers to collaborate with you again. Many are curious what prompted the breakdown of such a… successful partnership.”

There it was.

Every camera leaned closer.

Khun could practically feel Maschenny’s warning voice in his skull:

Behave.

He inhaled once, slow, then a controlled smile. “The truth,” Khun said carefully, “is that artistry evolves. Sometimes that evolution leads people in different directions. That’s all.”

The interviewer blinked, she’d hoped for blood.

But Khun wasn’t done. “And,” he added lightly, “I fully respect Mr. Grace’s choice to pursue whatever… path he believes he should take.” It was polite and sanitized, but in his eyes there was a flicker, just long enough to cut.

The reporters felt it.

The interviewer pressed on, hungrier now: “So this isn’t personal? Despite what some might claim about—”

“About Mr. Grace’s… remarks?” Khun finished for her, voice still smooth.

A subtle shift, a sharpened edge beneath the politeness.

“Everyone is entitled to their opinions,” he continued. “If Mr. Grace feels the need to distance himself from our past work, I respect that. Truly. But I also believe public frustration often says more about the artist expressing it than the one being spoken about.”

The interviewer leaned in. “So you think he’s frustrated?”

Khun’s lips curved; a very small, very dangerous smile.

“I think he’s talented,” he said. “And talent hates reminders of where it came from.”

A beat of silence came, thick enough to choke on.

Ran risked a side glance toward the control room — probably picturing Maschenny pacing with a taser.

The interviewer swallowed. “So… you would still work with him again?”

Khun’s answer came instantly:

“If the music calls for it,” he said.

And then quieter — deliberate — a seed planted:

“And if he isn’t afraid to answer.”

Oh.

Every phone in the building lit up at once. The internet tasted tension like blood in the water, already writing headlines. Khun simply sat back, expression pristine and untouchable, as if he hadn’t just declared war with a smile and a polite nod— this was unlike him.

Ran muttered under his breath, only loud enough for him: “You’re going to be murdered by PR.”

Khun didn’t look away from the camera. “They should know better by now.”

“Thank you,” the interviewer said breathlessly, “for your honesty.”

Khun stood with the same calm he had entered with; collected, calculated.

Interview: flawless.

Damage: catastrophic.

BACKSTAGE — JAHAD TOWER, 53RD FLOOR

The hallway shimmered with industry noise; interns darting, rehearsals pulsing behind soundproof glass.

Khun walked through it untouched with Ran who walked beside him, hands in pockets, expression halfway to disbelief. “You couldn’t have just said ‘no comment,’” Ran muttered. “Had to make it into poetry.”

Khun didn’t break stride. “I don’t ‘write’ poetry.”

“Oh Right, A.A,” Ran scoffed. “You weaponize it.”

A voice chimed from a lounge ahead: “You two finished being dramatic?” Endorsi Jahad lounged across a couch, phone in hand, eyes sparkling like she’d been waiting specifically to pounce.

“Asensio’s already looping your clip,” she added. “Congratulations. You’re trending… again.”

Asensio didn’t look up from the opposite sofa. “You enjoy watching him suffer more than you admit.”

“I enjoy entertainment,” Endorsi corrected. Then to Khun, a smirk crept, “You looked almost human for a moment there. Vulnerability suits you.”

Khun raised a brow. “That would imply I have any.”

Anaak, tuning a guitar nearby, snorted. “You do. You just refuse to name it.”

Ran: “Told you. Weaponized poetry.”

Khun exhaled like dealing with toddlers. “If you all don’t mind,” he said, turning toward the elevator, “I still have work to do.”

Endorsi called after him, voice unexpectedly soft: “For what it’s worth, you sounded like you meant it. What you said in the interview, I mean.”

Khun paused, well only for a brief moment and then left as Ran watched him go.

“…he’s not going to sleep tonight.”

Asensio replied without looking up, “He hasn’t slept since the day they split.”

Silence settled as the elevator doors closed.

Jue Viole Grace — Present Day perspective

Bam had been staring at the same line for nearly an hour, it was one lyric, scribbled at the top of the page, rewritten so many times the paper had thinned:

What if it was never wrong…

Everything beneath it was scratched out.

Everything he tried sounded like it wanted to be something else, something he wasn’t sure he had the right to write anymore.

His guitar lay across his lap, warm where his hands had rested, untouched long enough for the strings to go dull. He strummed once. The chord didn’t land the way he wanted. He tried again and it was worse. This wasn’t exactly writer's block; rather, it was knowing exactly what he wanted to say, and realizing he didn’t know if he was allowed to say it.

Jinsung stood nearby, leaning against the wall with his usual unreadable calm. He watched the failed attempts pile up page after page of silence disguised as effort. “How long have you been sitting like that?” he asked.

Bam shrugged. “Since this morning.”

“It’s past noon.”

He hadn’t noticed. He didn’t want to admit that it bothered him.

Jinsung crossed the room, lifted one of the crumpled sheets from the floor, and smoothed it open. He didn’t judge the crossed-out lines, just studied the ink, the hesitation. “You’re thinking too far ahead,” he said. “Just write one honest sentence. Don’t worry about where it goes.”

Bam nodded but didn’t move. The problem wasn’t honesty but it was the reaction honesty would cause.

On the nearby table, a tablet buzzed with a notification, Jinsung glanced at the screen, eyebrows lifting slightly. “You should see this.”

Bam didn’t want to. But he took it anyway.

Khun’s interview clip played silently — the part everyone was talking about.

The part about fear. About unanswered music.

Bam’s throat tightened.

He set the tablet face-down.

Jinsung didn’t comment.

Bam reached for his guitar again. His fingers landed on the strings like they were unfamiliar. He picked a melody — simple, almost hesitant. It wavered halfway through. His hand dropped, “I used to know what this was for,” he said quietly. “What I was trying to say.”

“And now?” Jinsung asked.

Bam stared at the blank space waiting beneath that half-finished lyric. “…I’m not sure anymore.”

No tears. No dramatic breakdown. Just a tired truth that seemed to hollow the room a little.

Jinsung straightened. “Then let’s start there.”

Because sometimes the hardest place to write from is the place where everything once made sense.

8 years ago, Sweet and Sour Apartment.

When the boxes were finally sealed, they all just… stood there. The apartment looked too small now, too familiar, and too full of reminders of who they used to be.

Elaine brushed off her hands, trying not to stare too long at the empty walls.

“We’re all going to the same place,” she said. “But it still feels like we’re leaving something behind.”

“No one said this is the end,” Wangnan argued, though his voice lacked confidence.

“It’s not,” Hockney said. “It’s just changing. And that feels worse.”

They would still walk the same halls in the Tower, still train, still meet for meals.

But their goals were no longer aligned. Their opportunities would not be equal.

For the first time since forming the band, they were not moving on the same path.

Bam set the last box by the door and exhaled. His guitar was slung over his shoulder — one of the few things untouched by any company’s decision. “I’ll still be around,” he said. “Nothing’s really changing.”

“It is,” Wangnan replied softly. “You’ll be onstage while we’re still trying to earn a place in the audience.”

Elaine nudged him. “You’re making it sound bad. We’ll be performing too.”

Hockney stepped forward and held out a marker, curious glances fell into him.

“What? I was going to say that before we go, sign the wall. Just something for us.”

They signed one small patch of wall near the kitchen — all their signatures crammed together.

Wangnan added a crooked heart on top. “That way,” he said, “someone will know this place mattered.”

Then, a flyer flew toward their direction; it was their first gig flyer.

Sweet & Sour — One Night Only!

A joke name at first.

A promise later.

They all laughed a little, because the alternative was letting the moment get too heavy. They left together, pulling the door shut for the last time.

In the way, the silence followed them like a shadow.

They walked outside — still a group, but not entirely united anymore.

Some of them would be pushed ahead sooner.

Some would have to work harder to catch up.

None of them said it out loud, but they all understood what this move meant.

When the doors closed, Bam glanced back at the apartment — specifically at that messy cluster of signatures.

It was proof that they had started something real.

The doors closed, and they began the next chapter of their lives.

And Sweet & Sour would never be the same.

*

Bam’s first month under Khun's supervision was a study in contrast.

Mornings are all about vocal technique until every muscle in his throat feels too tight to breathe. Afternoons on the other hand, focused on assessments with sound engineers and department heads who spoke about him like a promising asset more than a person. Nights were for recording drills until his fingers shook against the guitar strings.

Week 1 —

Bam couldn't help but be overwhelmed with the sudden change in his life— in his schedule and with the environment and people who surround him, but he has been nothing more except determined to do his best in every opportunity given to him by life.

Week 2 —

He met a strange individual named Evankhell, she arrived like a storm disguised as a woman. Tall. Sharp-eyed. Voice loud enough to rattle confidence out of anyone within ten meters, apparently she’s a freelance vocal director recruited directly by Eduan.

“You’ve got an engine in your ribcage,” she said, tapping his sternum. “I’m here to make sure you learn to drive it and not crash it.”

He wasn’t sure if that was possible.

By Week 4, exhaustion had become familiar that even elevator rides felt like scaling a tower of its own, though he can't help but admit that he's enjoying his time in the tower. Yes, he's been distant with his friends, Sweet and Sour, but it really can't be helped when both of them are kept busy by the Tower, no? This is a great opportunity to know yourself and become better at what you do, Bam thinks.

So when training ended early that evening, Bam wandered. Well he just walked until the hall he found was quieter than it should be.

A full glass wall rose beside him and they framed with cool lights:

Awards. Debut posters. Headlines.

There was a familiar face he couldn't help but look at.

It was Khun, just a little younger.

Eyes brighter, posture looser.

Standing among a group — the girl beside him grinning wide and unafraid.

COUP D’ÉTAT

Debut: 8 Years Ago

Bam didn’t know why his chest tightened.

“That was his first group.”

He turned, and there was Hatz who stood a few steps away, hands in pockets. Bam had spoken to him sometime for the past month, but not so much. He wasn't really introduced to other people in the tower.

“He sang back then,” Hatz continued, gaze fixed on the display. “Huge stages. Sold-out venues. He was supposed to ‘bring’ the next face of the Tower.”

Bam blinked. “What happened?”

Hatz’s jaw tightened just for a second.

“Coup d’État broke up,” he said. “Industry vultures swarmed in, and Khun—” He searched for the right phrasing. “He decided he’d rather build from the shadows than let anyone use him again.”

Bam absorbed that quietly.

“So now,” Hatz continued, looking at him, “if he’s producing again? And choosing you as the first person to stand in front of a microphone under his name?” He huffed a short breath, not quite a laugh.

“People are paying attention.”

Bam stared at the plaque again.

The version of Khun there looked fearless, the version he knew looked like he’d learned something too heavy to put into words.

“Come on,” Hatz said, nudging him toward the elevator. “You look like you haven’t eaten since the decade before your debut. Cafeteria’s still open.”

For the first time that day, Bam actually smiled. It was the first (?) time someone offered him to go to the cafeteria in the tower for weeks, so he followed.

They took the elevator down to the cafeteria — quiet now, long after the dinner rush. The lights hummed overhead, sterile and soft, making everything look a little too clean. The scent of reheated food and coffee hung in the air.

Hatz grabbed two trays, slid one toward Bam, and sat across from him. “Eat,” he said.

Bam hesitated before nodding. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. You’ll need it if Evankhell decides to ‘train your soul’ again tomorrow.”

That earned a faint smile. “She told me my voice doesn’t know what it wants to be yet.”

“I may not know her or what she’s like as a mentor,” Hatz said, his tone even but not unkind, “but don’t let it get to you too much. She’s got a reputation, the kind that comes from shaping voices that outlast their singers.”

He picked at the edge of his tray, eyes thoughtful. “Evankhell’s a legend in this field, and both of us know legends don’t waste time on mediocrity. If she’s tough on you, it means she thinks you’re worth the effort.”

Bam smiled faintly, the tension in his shoulders easing a little. “That’s… one way to see it.”

“It’s the only way that matters,” Hatz replied.

After that, neither of them spoke again for a while. The cafeteria noise faded into the background; just the low hum of lights, the scrape of trays, and the quiet rhythm of two people who didn’t need to fill the silence to understand it.

Eventually, Bam spoke. “Did everyone here start this young?”

Hatz looked up. “Young?”

“I’m eighteen,” Bam said, voice low. “I thought that was normal, but lately it feels like I’m already behind.”

Hatz gave a small snort. “If you were from one of the Great Families, you’d probably have debuted five years ago.”

Bam looked up.

“That’s just how they do it,” Hatz went on. “The Khuns, the Aries, the Po Bidaus, the Lo Po Bias — they like to parade their kids early. Prestige, reputation, competition. Call it whatever you want. It’s how they prove their bloodline’s still worth something.”

He paused, leaning back in his chair. “Your producer, as I said, is no exception. His family practically breeds performers. He started young, too. Not the youngest, but earlier than he probably wanted to.”

Bam frowned. “Because he was talented?”

“Because he didn’t have a choice,” Hatz said simply. “When your family’s name carries that much weight, talent stops feeling like a gift. It’s an obligation.”

The words lingered between them. Bam picked at his food, quiet for a long moment. “He never talks about it.”

“Would you?” Hatz asked. “If every memory of your success came with someone else’s fingerprints on it?”

Bam didn’t answer. The hum of the lights filled the space again — steady, almost like a heartbeat.

Hatz finally stood, tossing his tray away. “Come on. You look like you’re about to write a song about it.”

Bam smiled faintly as he followed Hatz. “Maybe I will.”

“Save it for when you’ve slept,” Hatz said, pressing the elevator button. “Otherwise, it’s just noise.”

The doors slid open with a soft chime. They stepped inside, the mirrored panel catching their reflections; one boy still learning where to begin, the other already knowing too much about endings.

*

Jahad Tower — 52nd Floor, 11:43 PM

The elevator doors slid open with a muted chime. Most of the floor lights were already dimmed — night mode, as the staff called it. A soft bluish hue coated the hallway, the air humming faintly with the building’s central systems still at work.

Hatz gave a lazy wave as they stepped out. “Don’t stay up too late, Bam. Tower sensors log everything, even insomnia.”

Bam smiled faintly. “Goodnight, Hatz.”

The other boy left toward the dorm wing, hands in his pockets, posture relaxed but still in a careful way only someone used to long nights could manage.

Bam should’ve followed to the dorm wing but he didn’t.

Instead, he entered the elevator again and pressed floor “47”. He waited for the doors to open. As he reached the floor, his steps drifted — slow, aimless — toward the east corridor, where the recording suites were. The glass walls reflected him back in fragments: tired eyes, hoodie half-zipped, guitar strap still hanging from his shoulder. He didn’t know why he was walking there but it was not habit, gravity perhaps.

Then he saw it.

Khun’s office.

Light still on.

His eyes gleamed of curiosity as he hesitated outside the door, watching through the thin pane of glass.

Khun sat behind the console — jacket off, sleeves rolled to his elbows, expression unreadable as the glow of multiple monitors carved blue lines across his face. Tracks of audio floated across the screens, layers of color stacked like pulse waves; alive, moving, endless.

Even in stillness, Khun looked precise, like every breath was calculated.

Bam knocked once.

Khun didn’t look up right away, though his voice carried, calm and even.

“Come in.”

Bam pushed the door open. The sound of rain tapping against the window filled the space, faint but constant — the only thing that dared interrupt the quiet.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Khun asked, eyes still on the monitor.

“Not really,” Bam said. “Just finished dinner with Hatz.”

Khun hummed in acknowledgment, the faintest sound of approval. “Good. Hatz didn’t lecture you about rhythm, did he?”

Bam almost smiled. “He didn't.”

That earned him a glance — brief, assessing, not unkind. Khun gestured to a nearby chair, “Sit.” and Bam followed.

The desk between them wasn’t cluttered, just deliberate, there were sheets of notation stacked neatly, a half-finished cup of coffee, one glowing screen still displaying a familiar waveform.

It was his voice.

Khun caught his look. “Playback review,” he said simply. “I was checking tone consistency.”

“Do you always stay this late?” Bam asked after a beat.

Khun leaned back slightly. “Most nights. It’s quieter when everyone else is gone.” He said it plainly, but Bam heard what he didn’t say: it’s easier to think when no one’s watching.

Bam nodded. “Do you ever stop working?”

Khun’s gaze flicked to him, sharp and clean as glass. “Do you?”

The question hit harder than it should have.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The rain filled in the silence.

Then Khun said, almost to himself, “You’re improving faster than expected. Evankhell said your range opened another key this week.”

Bam blinked. “She… did?”

Khun nodded, eyes still on the waveform. “You’re starting to understand your own tone, not just how to use it, but when not to. Most singers never get that far.”

Bam’s mouth parted slightly. He wasn’t sure what to say. Praise from Khun was rare; not because he didn’t care, but because he refused to give it cheaply.

“That’s… good to hear,” he managed.

Khun finally looked at him then — really looked. “You listen when it matters,” he said quietly. “That’s rarer than talent.” It wasn’t said like a compliment. It was said like fact; but Bam felt the weight of it all the same.

Khun turned back to the screen before the silence could stretch too long. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

Bam smiled, small but genuine. “Wouldn’t dare.”

“Good,” Khun said. “Get some rest. Training starts at nine.”

Bam stood, slinging his guitar over his shoulder. “Goodnight, Khun.”

“Goodnight.”

He paused at the door, looking back just once. The monitors cast blue light over Khun’s profile — sharp, tired, quietly intent. He didn’t look like a producer then. He looked like someone trying to remember what music used to feel like before it became his job.

Bam left, closing the door softly behind him.

The rain kept falling, it was steady, unhurried, and relentless.

Inside, Khun pressed play again, Bam’s voice filled the room — fragile and fierce at once.

For a second, just one, Khun allowed himself to close his eyes.

And the Tower — all glass and steel — felt a little less hollow.

*

Jahad Tower — 52nd Floor

Afternoon

Bam’s voice cracked again.

It wasn’t the sharp kind of mistake — more like a tremor that wouldn’t stop running through him. His throat ached. The air felt heavier each time he tried to reach for the higher notes.

Evankhell was pacing near the soundboard, arms crossed, expression equal parts frustrated and impressed. “Again,” she said. “But this time, just mean it. You sound like you’re reciting your own obituary.”

Bam laughed softly, hoarse. “You make it sound easy.”

“It is,” she said. “Once you stop overthinking. Open your mouth, don’t question yourself, and pray you don’t sound terrible.”

He nodded, took a breath, and started again.

The sound came out steadier this time, but his shoulders sagged when he finished.

From behind the glass wall, Yuri watched, her arms folded.

He’d been at it since morning — same verse, same phrase, no complaint. She could see it in his posture now: exhaustion woven into discipline.

When Evankhell gave him another round of notes, Yuri sighed and finally turned away.

*

47th Floor — Khun’s Office

Khun was reviewing schedules when the door opened. He didn’t look up. “You know knocking exists, right?”

“Would’ve ruined my entrance,” Yuri said, striding in with her usual mix of charm and impatience.

Khun didn’t glance up from the tablet. “You’re here about Bam.”

“Wow. And they call me perceptive.” She leaned against his desk. “You’ve got that kid working himself into dust. He barely had any water.”

“He doesn’t complain.”

“That’s the problem, genius,” Yuri said. “He’s too polite to burn out loud.”

Khun sighed, setting the tablet down. “He’s adapting. That’s what this stage is for.”

Yuri gave him a look — the kind that cut through his professional armor. “You push people because you think they’ll be fine. But not everyone’s built like you.”

He didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched — then he said, quietly:

“One day off.”

Yuri smirked. “You’re soft when you’re guilty.”

“I’m practical,” he corrected. “If he breaks, I lose weeks of progress.”

“Whatever helps you sleep,” she said, already heading for the door. “I’ll let him know before he passes out.”

*

52nd Floor — Later

When Evankhell called for a break, Bam almost didn’t hear her.

He was mid-note, voice straining against the last measure, already bracing himself for another round of corrections.

“Cut it,” she said sharply, one hand slicing the air. “You’re done.”

The words hit harder than any critique.

He lowered the mic, blinking as if the concept itself was foreign. “Sorry?”

Evankhell stared at him, eyes narrowing beneath her fringe of fiery red hair. “You’re done,” she repeated. “As in—stop before your vocal cords pack up and leave you.”

The studio door slid open then, and Yuri stepped inside — bright, grinning, arms full of energy the way only she could be.

“You, my friend,” she announced, pointing at him like she was delivering divine news, “have officially been granted the sacred, once-in-a-century gift of rest. Courtesy of your producer finally remembering you’re human.”

Bam looked between them, confused. “But we haven’t finished the bridge yet.”

Evankhell let out an exaggerated sigh, tossing her clipboard onto the nearby chair. “You finish tomorrow. Or next week. Or in your next life — I don’t care. What I do care about is that you leave this room before I staple that mic to the wall.”

“But—”

“No buts,” Yuri interrupted, cutting through his hesitation like a blade through silk. She crossed her arms, that familiar spark of authority settling beneath her smile. “He said you get a day off, and I’m not giving him a chance to change his mind.”

Bam blinked. “He… said that?”

Yuri nodded. “Khun himself. Which, frankly, is as rare as me giving out compliments. So take it before he starts reconsidering and schedules you for double sessions.”

Evankhell leaned back against the console, arms folded. “She’s right. I’ve seen robots take more breaks than you. Go do something normal.”

“Like what?” Bam asked.

It came out more genuine than he meant — an honest question, edged with quiet embarrassment. The thought hit him then: he couldn’t remember what “normal” looked like anymore.

Yuri’s expression softened slightly. “I don’t know. Eat something. Sleep. Take a walk. Find out if the Tower even still has sunlight.”

Her tone turned teasing again, and that earned a faint laugh from him — small, startled, but real.

“Right,” he murmured, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll… try.”

“Good boy,” Yuri said, reaching over to pat his shoulder. “And try not to rehearse in your dreams. That’s an order.”

Evankhell smirked. “If he does, tell Khun I’m increasing my hourly rate.”

Bam smiled — faint but sincere — before gathering his things. As he stepped toward the door, the silence that followed him was strange.

Not tense, not expectant — just still.

He wasn’t used to stillness.

And he wasn’t sure what to do with it now that it was his.

*

He tried.

He really did.

Bam considered sleeping but the silence of not working itched at him worse than exhaustion. By the time the hallways were mostly empty, his steps had carried him somewhere familiar — the quiet corridor with the soft glow under a single door.

Khun’s office.

He hesitated only a second before knocking.

The sound barely echoed — the door was heavy, the kind that muffled even hesitation.

“Come in,” came Khun’s voice from inside, calm and faintly distracted, the kind of tone that belonged to someone who’d been awake too long.

Bam pushed the door open.

The studio looked different at night — softer somehow. The harsh fluorescence had dimmed to a low, bluish glow from the monitors, scattering cold light across the walls. The rain outside had picked up again, streaking the tall windows with thin, liquid lines.

Khun was there, sleeves rolled up, posture effortlessly sharp even in fatigue. The glow of the screen traced the edges of his face — eyes focused, expression unreadable, the kind of stillness that came from control, not peace.

He looked up at the sound of the door.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” Khun said, tone more amused than scolding, though the faint lift of his brow said he wasn’t entirely surprised.

“I tried,” Bam admitted. “Didn’t work.”

Khun leaned back slightly in his chair, arms folding loosely as his gaze studied him — curious, not critical. “Don’t you know how to stop?”

Bam looked down, his voice low. “I just… don’t know what to do when I’m not supposed to be doing anything.”

That earned the smallest twitch of a smile from Khun. “You sound like me at your age.”

Bam looked up, deadpanning. “Aren’t we the same age?”

Khun tilted his head, as if considering it. “Oh? Well, it feels like I’m several lifetimes old,” he said, dry humor curling under the words. Then, quieter — “Though judging by you showing up here again, I haven’t learned much since.”

That made Bam laugh under his breath. The sound was soft, like air leaving a held breath. “Sorry for interrupting.”

“You’re not interrupting.” Khun gestured toward the second chair with a flick of his fingers. “Sit down before I change my mind.”

Bam did.

The silence that followed wasn’t heavy — just full. The kind that hummed quietly between two people who’d grown used to sound filling every moment. The monitors in front of them glowed with layers of open tracks — thin colored waves stacked across the timeline like pulses.

Bam’s eyes drifted toward them. “You’re still working?”

Khun followed his gaze. “Playback edits,” he said simply. “I was reviewing your last takes.”

Bam’s brows furrowed. “How bad were they?”

Khun smirked faintly, the corner of his mouth tilting with something that almost looked like pride. “Bad enough to prove you’re still human,” he said. “Good enough to make me listen twice.”

The words hung there for a second — quiet, unforced, more meaningful because of how simply they were said.

Bam blinked, then smiled — small, unsure, but genuine. “Thank you.”

Khun’s eyes softened, just a fraction. “Don’t thank me,” he said, voice lower now. “Just keep making it worth saying.”

Outside, the rain softened into a steady rhythm — tapping faintly against the glass like a metronome no one had set.

For a while, neither spoke. The faint hum of the equipment filled the space, warm and constant.

Then Khun broke the quiet, eyes still on the screen. “You’ll figure it out, you know. What to do with rest.”

Bam tilted his head slightly. “You make it sound like a skill.”

“It is,” Khun said simply. “One they don’t teach here.”

Bam considered that for a moment. “What did you do when you didn’t know how?”

Khun paused — long enough that Bam thought he wouldn’t answer. His gaze shifted to the window, watching the streaks of water slip down the glass, catching the blue light as they fell.

“I worked anyway,” he said finally.

Bam laughed softly, the sound a mix of disbelief and something like empathy. “That doesn’t sound like a solution.”

“No,” Khun admitted, a ghost of a smile flickering across his face. “But it was the only thing that made sense.”

The air in the room seemed to settle then — the tension, the exhaustion, all of it thinning into something quiet and shared.

They stayed there for a long time — two people who didn’t know how to stop moving, sitting in the only quiet room in the Tower.

The hum of the speakers ebbed out, leaving only the soft whir of the air-conditioning. The kind of silence that didn’t press, just lingered. Bam sat on the edge of the chair, elbows resting on his knees, eyes following Khun as he fine-tuned levels for what had to be the fiftieth time. Each adjustment looked identical, but Bam could tell Khun was listening for something specific — something only he could hear.

He’d been told to take a break.

Technically, this was it.

It just didn’t feel like one.

“Khun,” he said after a moment, voice careful, testing.

Khun didn’t look up. “Mm?”

The single sound carried a kind of focus that made Bam hesitate, the way you do when you’re about to disturb something fragile — or sacred.

“You know… you’re supposed to take breaks too.”

“I’m aware.”

“You just don’t?”

Khun’s eyes didn’t leave the screen. “Efficiency doesn’t rest.”

“That’s not healthy.”

“That’s results.”

Bam frowned, leaning back. “That’s hypocrisy.”

That earned him a glance — faint surprise, maybe the ghost of amusement. “You’ve been spending too much time around Evankhell.”

“She’s right, though,” Bam said, standing up. “You gave me a break. You should take one too.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Khun’s fingers paused on the console, mid-motion. “Excuse me?”

Bam didn’t flinch. “You’ve been at that thing since I don't know when. Have you even moved from that seat for hours?”

Khun blinked once, slowly — the kind of slow that looked less like confusion and more like recalibration, as if he was trying to decide whether this was worth his attention.

“And what exactly do you suggest I do, Twenty-Fifth Bam?”

Bam hesitated, shifting slightly in his seat before straightening up, resolve flickering behind his calm tone.

“Come with me.”

Khun’s brows lifted, faintly skeptical. “Where?”

“The cafeteria.”

For the first time all afternoon, Khun looked up fully, expression caught somewhere between disbelief and faint irritation. “You’re joking.”

“I’m serious.”

Khun leaned back, crossing his arms, the corner of his mouth threatening to tilt. “I don’t eat cafeteria food.”

“Then don’t eat,” Bam said simply, standing up and slinging his jacket over one arm. He turned toward the door, pausing just long enough to glance back.

“Just come sit.”

For a second, Khun didn’t move. The request — casual on the surface, impossible underneath — hung between them like a challenge wrapped in sincerity.

And then, with a quiet sigh that sounded suspiciously like surrender, Khun pushed away from the console. “Fine,” he said, reaching for his jacket with his tablet on hand. “But if their coffee tastes like burnt regret again, I’m blaming you.”

Bam’s mouth curved. “Deal.”

Khun looked after him, the boy’s quiet stubbornness somehow louder than Evankhell’s entire morning of drills.

“…You realize this is wildly unprofessional.”

“So’s working yourself into a migraine,” Bam replied over his shoulder.

There was a pause. Then, to his own surprise, Khun stood.

“Five minutes,” he muttered

“Fifteen,” Bam countered. “At least.”

Khun sighed — a sound balanced somewhere between exasperation and reluctant amusement. “You’re impossible.”

Bam glanced back over his shoulder, a small smile tugging at his lips. “You taught me that.”

That made Khun pause mid-step, the faintest flicker crossing his face, something unreadable, too quick to name.

“I don't recall teaching you that for the past month,” he said finally, his voice quieter now.

*

The cafeteria on the 50th floor wasn’t glamorous, there were just wide windows, neutral walls, and the low murmur of people between sessions.

Still, the view stretched all the way down to the city’s mid-ring, streaks of sun breaking through the overcast skyline.

Bam led the way to an empty corner booth. Khun followed, tablet still in hand but untouched.

“You can put that down,” Bam said, nodding to it.

Khun sat, posture immaculate even in casual defeat. “I’m only humoring you because you outranked Evankhell’s stubbornness quota.”

Bam grinned a little. “That sounds like a compliment.”

“It isn’t.”

“Still taking it as one.”

Khun exhaled, almost smiling despite himself. “You’re relentless.”

“Someone has to be.”

They sat there for a moment, silence stretching comfortably between them.

Bam sipped his drink; Khun’s stayed untouched. The soft buzz of conversation around them felt almost foreign — normal.

After a while, Bam asked, “Was it always like this for you?”

Khun looked up. “Like what?”

“Being in the tower. The schedule. The pressure.”

Khun considered. “It’s quieter now,” he said finally. “Back then, it was chaos. Endless rehearsals, showcases, meetings I barely understood. It's either I learn fast or drown faster.”

Bam traced the rim of his cup. “You debuted at ten, right?”

Khun nodded. “My family thought the earlier you proved yourself, the longer they could own what you became.”

“That’s… harsh.”

“It’s tradition,” Khun said, but there was no pride in it. “You learn that excellence isn’t a choice in families like mine. It’s inheritance, whether you asked for it or not.”

Bam studied him for a moment. “Do you ever wish you’d had more time to just… be a kid?”

Khun’s eyes flicked toward the window. The city shimmered faintly below, glass catching light like water. “I mean, I don’t think I’d know what to do with it,” he said quietly. “I wouldn’t know what to be.”

“Maybe that’s why you don’t know what to do with a break.”

That earned a soft laugh; real, short, genuine. “Touché.”

Bam leaned back, smiling faintly. “See? Feels better already.”

Khun tilted his head, as if assessing him anew. “You’re unusually smug for someone who’s supposed to be resting.”

“I’m resting now.”

“You’re provoking me.”

“That too.”

Their banter softened something unspoken between them — tension that had lingered since the start of his training. For the first time in weeks, the air around them felt easy.

When Bam reached for his drink again, he caught Khun watching him, well not critically, but thoughtfully.

“What?” Bam asked, half self-conscious.

Khun looked away, his tone quieter than before. “You’re handling this better than I expected.”

Bam blinked. “The training?”

“All of it,” Khun said. “The transition. The scrutiny. The weight.”

He hesitated, then added, “You’re not breaking under it. Most do.”

Bam didn’t know what to say to that. Praise from Khun wasn’t something you absorbed easily; it lingered like static.

“Thank you,” he said finally.

Khun nodded, eyes on the skyline. “Don’t thank me yet. You still have a long way to go.”

“I know,” Bam said. “But I’m learning.”

“That’s what matters.”

They stayed there a while longer, neither of them in a rush to move — two people learning, maybe by accident, how to breathe outside of rhythm and schedule.

For once, the Tower didn’t feel suffocating.

Just still.

And enough.

The sunlight had mellowed by the time Khun finally set his tablet aside. The hum of the cafeteria had thinned to the casual rhythm of trays clattering and distant laughter — the kind of background noise that meant life was still happening somewhere beyond deadlines.

He sat back, rubbing his temples once, a small, unguarded gesture Bam wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before.

“Thank you,” Khun said quietly.

Bam blinked. “For what?”

“For insisting,” Khun replied. His tone stayed dry, but there was something gentler underneath. “I wouldn’t have left the studio otherwise.”

Bam smiled. “That’s the idea, Khun.”

Khun huffed a small breath, the closest he ever got to a laugh. “You’re a strange student, you know that?”

“You’re a strange teacher.”

“Fair.”

For a moment, neither spoke. The silence that lingered wasn’t awkward — it was light, almost comfortable, like air after rain. Khun’s gaze drifted out toward the city again, the light reflecting off the skyline in long, soft strokes of gold.

Then Bam said it — sudden, simple, and maybe braver than he intended:

“We should do this more often.”

Khun looked back at him, brow slightly raised. “Do what?”

“This,” Bam said, gesturing vaguely at the table, at the half-empty cups, the sunlight, the quiet. “Just… talk. Sit. Be people.”

Khun stared at him a moment too long, the corners of his mouth twitching like he wasn’t sure whether to smile or sigh. “People,” he echoed, as if testing the word.

“Yes,” Bam said. “We can’t make good music if we forget how to be that.”

Something flickered in Khun’s eyes — recognition, maybe, or memory. He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the table.

“You sound like someone who knows more about music than he admits.”

“Maybe I’m learning from the best.”

Khun gave him a look; half warning, half amusement. “Flattery doesn’t get you shorter rehearsals.”

“Didn’t say it was flattery,” Bam said, and Khun almost — almost — smiled.

Then his phone buzzed against the table, screen flashing with a single name: Maschenny.

The air shifted.

Khun sighed quietly, the brief softness slipping back behind composure. “Duty calls,” he murmured, picking up the phone but not answering yet. “You should head back, get some rest before tomorrow’s session.”

Bam hesitated. “What about you?”

Khun slipped the device into his pocket. “Meetings. Always meetings.”

He stood, smoothing his sleeve. “But… thanks, Bam. For reminding me what a break feels like.”

Bam met his eyes, something steady in his voice. “Then you should remember it more often.”

Khun paused — just long enough for it to count — before replying softly,

“I’ll try.”

And for Khun, that was as close to a promise as anyone ever got.

Khun was the first to stand, his movements neat, composed. The kind that didn’t leave room for hesitation. He gave a polite nod, then turned and walked out, the sound of his footsteps fading into the low hum of the cafeteria.

Bam watched him go, a quiet thought settling somewhere between admiration and distance. It was strange, he realized — Khun wasn’t any older than him, yet somehow he felt miles ahead. Not just in skill, but in the way he carried himself — like someone who had already lived a few lives before this one.

Bam stayed where he was after Khun left, watching the doors close behind him.

The cafeteria felt strangely hollow once the sound of Khun’s footsteps faded — too bright, too clean, too quiet.

He stirred what was left of his drink, the ice already melted into pale sweetness.

For the first time all day, there was nothing he had to do.

And somehow, that felt heavier than training.

He reached for his phone without thinking — reflex more than intent.

A single unread message waited at the top of the screen.

> RACHEL:

Haven’t heard from you lately.

You must be busy pretending you’re happy up there.

He stared at it for a long time.

Then another message appeared.

> RACHEL:

You really think this will last, don’t you?

The words sat there, sharp and too familiar.

Bam exhaled slowly, thumb hovering above the keyboard.

For a second, he considered ignoring it.

Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he typed —

> BAM:

I just wanted to sing.

When are you going to stop, Rachel?

No punctuation. No explanation.

Just the question that had been waiting too long to be said aloud.

He watched the typing indicator blink, disappear, then blink again.

And then — nothing.

The screen dimmed. Bam turned the phone face down on the table, the quiet stretching around him like static.

Outside, the city lights shimmered against the glass, far away, unreachable.

He pressed a hand against his chest, half-expecting to feel something break.

But there was only the same dull ache, steady as breath.

*

Jahad Tower – 52nd Floor, Afternoon

Bam didn’t go back to his dorm.

The break felt heavier than training ever did.

He sat alone in one of the small lounges near the glass atrium — half-empty mug beside him, untouched. His reflection looked pale in the window’s surface; the Tower’s skyline behind him pulsed with too much life.

He tried to write again — opened his notebook, stared at the blank staff lines.

The pencil hovered, then fell still.

“You don’t know how to stop.”

He exhaled, dropped the pencil, and leaned back. He’d wanted this — wanted to belong somewhere, wanted to prove that what he carried inside could turn into something beautiful.

But lately, it all just felt like weight, that every note was too heavy to lift.

He looked up at the ceiling lights, their sterile white hum filling the silence. He should’ve gone outside, maybe. But where was outside in a Tower that reached past the clouds?

*

Meanwhile — 47th Floor

Khun’s office was quiet except for the faint ticking of the clock above the door.

The call came in while he was reviewing the day’s data logs — Eduan.

The name lit the screen like a flare.

He stared at it for a full five seconds before his thumb moved.

Then stopped.

The phone kept ringing, each tone slower than the last.

He didn’t answer— couldn’t, maybe.

When it finally clicked to silence, the room felt louder than before.

A notification blinked almost immediately.

> Father: If you’ve remembered how to pick up, I need you to see me now.

I don’t tolerate indecision, Aguero.

Khun let the message sit there, it was left unread, but it was already understood.

He ran a hand through his hair, the exhaustion in his shoulders settling in him deeper than he could've imagined.

The message still glowed on the screen long after the phone went silent.

Khun read it once more — not for clarity, but because it felt like staring into a mirror you couldn’t look away from. His father’s words had a way of sounding less like requests and more like gravitational pulls.

He exhaled quietly, shutting the monitor.

The sound of the click echoed sharp against the still air.

The Tower’s evening cycle had begun; the corridors were tinted gold, the lights dimmed to softer hues. Everything looked gentler at this hour — but it was a lie. The Tower didn’t rest. It simply shifted tone.

Khun slipped his tablet into his bag, straightened his collar, and stepped out.

The walk from the 47th to the executive wing felt longer than usual.

Maybe it was the silence — that thick, polished quiet reserved for people with too much power and too little warmth.

Glass walls reflected his figure back at him with every step, fractured and repeating, until it almost felt like he was walking beside a dozen versions of himself — all of them composed, all of them unreadable.

A few employees nodded as he passed.

He didn’t return the gesture.

The elevator arrived with a low chime, its doors sliding open like the mouth of something patient. He stepped inside, pressed the button for the uppermost private floor, and leaned back against the rail.

As it ascended, the glass walls of the lift offered a panoramic view of the Tower — the sprawl of city light below, the distant shimmer of rain where the skyline blurred into storm.

He watched it, expression still.

Every time he had to go to Eduan’s office, it felt the same:

the weight in his stomach, the reflexive correction of posture, the instinct to make himself smaller even when he knew better.

The elevator stopped with a soft hiss.

The doors opened to a hallway lined with brushed steel and marble — elegant, cold, and far too bright. Khun’s steps were steady, but his pulse drummed faintly beneath his sleeve.

He turned a corner and saw the two attendants posted outside Eduan’s door.

Both bowed their heads as he approached, neither daring to speak.

The office door was massive — black glass and silver trim, polished enough to show his reflection one last time.

He took a breath, lifted his hand, and knocked once.

A voice from inside — deep, commanding, faintly amused.

“Enter.”

Khun pushed the door open.

The first thing he noticed was the smell — oakwood, faint whiskey, and the electric tang of data screens humming along the walls. The room was vast, open to the skyline, the far wall entirely glass. The rain streaked across it in thin silver threads.

Eduan stood near the window, tall and impossibly composed, his silver blue hair catching the light like metal. He didn’t turn right away.

“Son,” he said, voice even. “You finally decided to remember your manners.”

Khun closed the door behind him, quiet, precise. “I was occupied.”

Eduan turned then, smiling — not warmly, but sharply. “You’re always occupied. Tell me, Aguero — are you busy working, or just avoiding?”

“Father,” Khun stepped inside, the door sliding shut behind him with a muted hiss. “What exactly do you need me for? It’s not like you to summon me personally. Usually, I just get a memo.”

Eduan looked up from behind his desk, a faint smirk ghosting his face. “You’re right. I could’ve had Maschenny handle this for me.” He lifted a hand, something almost like amusement in his voice. “But I couldn’t. Not with this.”

Without another word, he reached for the edge of his desk and flicked a brown envelope toward him. It landed against Khun’s chest before dropping onto the floor.

He caught it just in time, irritation flashing across his face.

“What is this?” Khun asked, voice even, though the muscle in his jaw tightened.

Eduan leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. “Go on. Open it.”

Khun hesitated, then tore the flap cleanly and pulled out a stack of papers — crisp, organized, clinical.

“That,” Eduan said, his tone carrying the faint satisfaction of someone delivering a calculated blow, “contains everything we could find about your boy. The one you’ve decided to make your next experiment.”

Khun’s gaze flicked up sharply. “Bam.”