The silence in Studio A of Apollo Entertainment wasn't empty it was pressurized, expensive, and watchful. It smelled of new leather, ionized air, and the faint chemical perfume of ambition.
Seventeen-year-old Minjae moved inside it like a smudge on a flawless mirror. His frayed black hoodie was both armor and camouflage—worn by someone meant to be unseen, unheard, and unimportant.
He existed close enough to greatness to burn his fingertips, yet impossibly far from touching it. His potential lived inside him like a secret deformity heavy, aching, impossible to ignore. Every cable he coiled, every cup he threw out, felt like paying tribute to a dream that wasn't meant for him.
Tonight, the dream was a roar.
The final playback of Gravity, the new single from the world-dominating K-pop group Aether, rattled the studio walls. Minjae crouched under the mixing console, sorting patch cables, trying to fold himself into the shadows.
Mr. Han, the producer, watched the soundwaves pulse on the monitor emerald peaks rising like perfect mountains. He took slow pulls from an e-cigarette, the synthetic berry vapor dissolving into the sterile air.
Minjae watched, too. He watched Jaewon the group's legendary lead vocalist hit the climactic C5 with surgical precision. The note was flawless. Award-bait material. A clean, expensive kind of perfection.
And yet Minjae felt his stomach drop.
The note was beautiful, but hollow.
Technically brilliant, but empty.
It soared, but without struggle.
It was a lie wrapped in melody.
Gravity wasn't about weightlessness. It was about the heaviness that almost breaks you. The fight to rise. The kind of fight Minjae knew too well humming into his pillow at 3 AM until his throat turned raw, praying someone would hear him.
His heart hammered with a reckless tempo.
Just one chance.
The thought lit a fuse inside him.
Months of swallowed ambition months of fear—ressed against his ribs like something trying to escape. Watching that polished, perfect lie on the screen, he realized a far worse fear:
Dying with the sound still trapped inside him.
When Mr. Han yawned, stretched, and muttered, "Ten minutes for air," Minjae's pulse shot into a sprint.
This was it.
His window.
He waited thirty seconds for the hallway to fall silent. Then he stood.
His hands trembled so violently he had to steady the mic stand. He pulled up the instrumental track, adjusted levels he wasn't allowed to touch, and ignored every alarm in his body screaming stop.
Blacklisting. Firing. The end of everything.
But the melody inside him was too loud now, clawing for escape.
He armed the recording channel.
The red light blinked on.
It felt less like a button and more like a judge's gavel.
Minjae closed his eyes. He didn't think about Jaewon, or the company, or the consequences.
He thought about the truth.
And when the track reached the final phrase, Minjae didn't mimic Jaewon's smooth ascent. He dropped into a raw, desperate belt—ragged, cracked, alive. A counter-melody that wrapped around the original harmony like a starving vine refusing to die.
He didn't sing about gravity.
He sang the sound of falling.
Five seconds of unfiltered soul.
Five seconds of seventeen years' worth of humiliation and hope.
Five seconds that belonged to no one but Minjae.
His voice cracked at the peak beautiful, imperfect humanity that would never survive an official edit. But that crack was the birthmark of the sound that was uniquely his.
When he finished, he folded against the console, dizzy, tasting copper and adrenaline. With shaking fingers, he saved the file:
"Cable Test 03 — Distortion Check."
Lights off. Sweat wiped away.
He restored every detail of the studio to its sterile perfection.
He had just unplugged the last cable when the studio door opened.
Too soon.
Minjae froze.
It wasn't Mr. Han.
It was Jaewon.
The star of the building. The voice of the continent. The man whose posters wallpapered entire subway stations. He stood in the doorway like a portrait expensive black leather, immaculate posture, unreadable eyes.
But he wasn't holding a phone or a water bottle.
He was holding a silence that threatened to crush Minjae alive.
"I thought I heard something," Jaewon said quietly. No charm. No camera-ready warmth. Just a calm, blade-sharp neutrality.
His gaze flicked to the console—the still-warm keys, the glowing screen.
Minjae's pulse collapsed into chaos.
He opened his mouth to lie to invent something about static, testing, equipment malfunction but Jaewon didn't wait.
He stepped forward, selected the last file with a precise touch, and pressed play.
Jaewon's perfect tenor filled the room.
Then Minjae's voice detonated through the speakers raw, furious, undeniable.
Perfection meeting pain.
Technique clashing with hunger.
When the final note dissolved, Jaewon closed the door behind him with a quiet click that sounded like destiny locking into place.
He walked toward Minjae slowly, deliberately, shrinking the room with each step. His eyes—those unblinking, billboard-famous eyes—studied him without mercy.
"You," Jaewon said, voice flat. "You just ruined the cleanest pop track of the season. You tainted it."
He didn't shout.
That made it worse.
But then—just for a flicker—his expression cracked. A flash of exhaustion. Something human.
"And you also gave it a pulse," he murmured. "You gave it a heart attack."
He exhaled, as if disappointed in the universe itself.
"Why," he asked quietly, "are you still fetching sparkling water? You sing like someone with nothing left to lose."
Minjae swallowed hard, gripping the cleaning rag until his knuckles blanched.
This was the reckoning.
"Because, sunbaenim," Minjae whispered, voice scraped raw, "I don't want to sing safe songs. I want to sing the songs that hurt. I want to be the best. And if I have to break something to prove I exist…"
His voice steadied.
"…then I'll break it."
A slow, dangerous smirk curved onto Jaewon's lips.
"The best, huh?" he murmured. "That's a seven-year contract soaked in blood, sweat, and regret. I know that road." His gaze drifted to the screen to the cursed little file glowing like a live wire. "If you're truly serious… there's an audition next week."
He tapped the screen.
"You're auditioning with this. With the mess you made. With the truth."
His voice sharpened.
"And if you fail… you disappear."
Then he turned, straightened his jacket, and left Minjae alone with the weight of everything he had just unleashed.
The studio fell silent again.
But this time, it wasn't empty.
It was waiting.