The mall showcase came and went like a dream, but the cost of that fleeting applause arrived in the daylight, heavy and real.
Minjun's mother sat across from him at the kitchen table, sleeves rolled up, flour dusting her hands. She had come home early from her part-time shift at the bakery, her shoulders hunched from hours of standing. A half-folded pile of laundry sat between them, a barricade of chores that said we don't have time for dreams.
"Did you eat?" she asked, but her voice was distant. Minjun nodded. He hadn't, but he lied because she looked so tired he couldn't bear to add one more thing to her worry.
She held up the envelope — the one with Starline's logo stamped in black ink. The trainee fee notice. Room rental for practice rooms, food allowance, costume deposits for the next showcase. A thin paper with a weight that could crush every note he'd written on his rooftop.
"Minjun," she said. His name sounded soft in her mouth, like she still half-remembered when he was small enough to carry on her hip. "Where are we going to find this money?"
Minjun's stomach twisted. He'd known this conversation was coming, but he had clung to the hope that maybe he could handle it alone. A part-time job, maybe — but his hours were already eaten alive by practice and transit and rooftop nights.
"Eomma," he began, voice rough. "I'll figure it out. Just… give me a little time—"
She slammed the envelope down. The sound made him flinch. She rarely raised her voice, but her eyes were sharp, wet at the corners.
"We don't have time, Minjun-ah!" she hissed. "You think the world waits while you chase songs in the dark? We can't even pay the gas bill on time—" She stopped herself, breathing hard. Her hands trembled over the laundry pile. "Your father… he works two jobs now. He's tired. So tired. Do you think he wants to see his son come home every night half-dead, for nothing?"
Minjun looked down at his hands. Calluses on his palms from floor drills. Pen smudges on his fingertips from scribbling lyrics. Proof that he was trying. That he wasn't just dreaming — he was working. But to her, it was the same.
"Just a little more time, Eomma," he said again, quietly. "Please."
She shook her head. "Time won't feed us. Time won't keep the lights on. They promised you a contract — where is it? When will it come?"
Minjun opened his mouth, but the answer was a ghost: Someday. If you're good enough. If you survive long enough. But that wasn't an answer a mother could take to the bank.
She rose from the table, gathered the envelope, and pressed it into his hands. Her fingers lingered on his knuckles — a small, desperate touch. A plea.
"Think about your family too, Minjun-ah. Not just your dream."
That night, Minjun didn't go to the rooftop. He lay on his mattress, staring at the ceiling. His guitar sat by the door, silent. The notebook with his half-finished lyrics was hidden under his pillow, as if hiding the pages could hide the problem.
He thought of Jiwoo's grin backstage, the way the crowd's scream had hit him like a spark. The possibility that if he gave this up now, that spark would vanish. He'd be just another kid working a delivery bike, watching other boys on screens live the life he'd once dared to want.
His father's bedroom door creaked open. Heavy footsteps, the sound of his dad easing into the kitchen for a glass of water. Minjun heard the faucet run, the weary sigh. He pictured his father's hands — cracked and rough from the construction site. The same hands that had once held him steady on a bicycle.
Could he really make them carry his dream too?
The next day, he dragged himself to Starline earlier than usual, his bag packed with an old pair of beat-up sneakers and the rice balls his mother still made him, even when she was angry.
He found Jiwoo curled up in the hallway, headphones in, bobbing his head to a beat only he could hear. When Minjun sat beside him, Jiwoo pulled off one earbud and grinned.
"You look like death," Jiwoo said cheerfully. "Want to dance it out?"
Minjun forced a laugh, but it didn't reach his eyes. Jiwoo nudged him with his knee.
"Hey. Spill it."
So Minjun did. In a whisper, in fits and starts. The envelope. His mother's tears. His father's silence. The bill he couldn't pay and the question that kept punching him in the ribs: How long can I keep going like this?
Jiwoo listened without interrupting. When Minjun finally ran out of words, Jiwoo reached into his bag and pulled out his lunch box — a cheap plastic thing with yesterday's kimbap inside.
"I know it's not much," Jiwoo said, pushing it into Minjun's lap, "but you can have half. And if you need more… I don't know. We'll figure it out."
Minjun stared at him. "Jiwoo, you can't—"
"I can." Jiwoo's grin wobbled, but his eyes stayed steady. "You're my partner. If you go down, I go down. So we don't go down. Okay?"
Minjun wanted to laugh, or cry, or maybe both. Instead, he nodded, his throat tight.
That night, he returned to the rooftop. The city was quieter than usual, the wind brushing his face like a reminder that it would always be here, whether he made it or not.
He opened his notebook. He pressed his pen to the page, and in shaky letters, he wrote a new chorus:
When the world says no, I'll make my own yes.When they shut the door, I'll build my own stage.I'll pay the price, I'll carry the cost —Because I am the night, and the night won't break.
Above him, the sky stayed dark — but Minjun felt something glow inside him anyway.