When Minjun stepped out of the holding facility, the cold dawn air hit him like a punch — sharp, bracing, delicious. For a moment, he tilted his face up and just breathed. Free air. Rooftop air, even if there was no rooftop under his feet.
Jiwoo stood beside him, fiddling with the cheap phone Miri had shoved into his hands moments before. She'd appeared like a ghost in the chaos outside the gates, hugging Minjun so tightly his ribs had ached. Then she vanished again, to spread word that the chorus had a heartbeat once more.
They didn't go home — because they didn't have one anymore. They didn't go to any secret basement or abandoned subway either. Instead, they went straight into the lion's den.
It was Jiwoo's idea — reckless, brilliant, stupid in the best way.
"Everyone's waiting for your face," Jiwoo said, voice hushed as they hid in a supply closet at a half-broken community center in Mapo. "The rooftop kids know you're out, but the rest? They need proof. Real proof. And we can't trust the networks. So…"
He held up his phone: LIVE BROADCAST.
Minjun stared at the tiny cracked screen, his reflection flickering. His hair was still jail-tousled, his eyes ringed with exhaustion, but his voice — his voice was ready.
Jiwoo grinned like a wolf. "You're gonna give 'em a rooftop concert they can't shut down. Live. Everywhere. Let Seojin watch you break his leash in real time."
It started simple. They taped Jiwoo's old mic to a broom handle, rigged to a borrowed amp in the center's dusty main hall. A couple of kids who recognized Minjun came running when the alert pinged — word spread like wildfire, rooftop fans slipping through the side doors with battered phones and scratchy speakers, all eager to beam him out to the whole city.
Miri arrived last, panting, clutching a battered tablet streaming the feed to half a dozen mirrors: a subway platform's digital billboard, the LED screen outside a tiny fried chicken shop, a projector onto a blank wall across from a police station.
Minjun stood in front of them, knees bouncing, palms damp. He could feel the chorus breathing with him — kids pressed shoulder to shoulder, waiting for that first note.
No contracts. No lights. No Seojin. Just him and the truth.
He opened with Rooftop Anthem. Raw, defiant, alive. Jiwoo pounded out a makeshift beat on an overturned filing cabinet. Miri clapped her hands like a metronome for the kids to keep time.
Somewhere out there, Minjun knew, the broadcast was bouncing off satellite dishes and cheap Wi-Fi routers, flashing across living rooms where worried mothers pretended not to hear, crackling through old headphones under school desks and on factory floors.
For fifteen glorious minutes, he was louder than Starline's lawyers, bolder than Seojin's threats.
Then the betrayal struck.
It started as a flicker on the old tablet. Miri frowned at the feed — the comment stream stuttered, broke into weird symbols, then died. Jiwoo's phone buzzed so violently it almost fell off the makeshift stand.
Then the front door banged open. Not cops this time — worse. Starline's "private security," goons in crisp suits with blank faces, legal enough to walk in without badges.
And behind them, framed in the bright hall light, was Sunho.
Minjun's mind stuttered. Sunho — his old trainee roommate. The boy who'd taught him how to loop vocal warm-ups, who'd split ramen packets with him during the nights they both starved under Starline's iron regime. The one who'd slipped him studio time when no one was watching.
Sunho stepped forward, the flash of an expensive watch glinting under the harsh fluorescents. He looked almost embarrassed, eyes flicking to Jiwoo, to Miri, then back to Minjun.
"Hyung," Sunho said, soft but carrying over the hush that fell over the room. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be. Just come with us. We'll sort it out. No more trouble."
Jiwoo spat on the floor. "Traitor," he hissed.
Sunho winced. "I didn't want this. But you're wrecking your life — you're wrecking all our chances. There's no future if you keep dragging the kids into it."
Minjun felt his voice — the same voice that had just electrified a thousand rooftops — curl up tight in his throat. Betrayal cut deeper than Seojin's bribes or the police cuffs. Sunho had been one of them — a crack in the machine, a whisper of freedom in the marble halls of Starline.
But here he was, suited up, carrying the leash Minjun had snapped.
The security team fanned out — polite but iron-willed, blocking exits, ignoring the kids' protests. Miri clutched the tablet to her chest like a shield. Jiwoo braced himself in front of the amp, like he could swing it if they got too close.
Minjun stepped forward until he was nose to nose with Sunho. He could smell the clean corporate cologne, the sweat at Sunho's hairline. He could see the regret in his old friend's eyes — but the regret was buried under fear. Fear of Seojin. Fear of the machine.
"You should be up there with us," Minjun said, low and sharp. "You are one of us."
Sunho's voice cracked. "I was — but you don't get it, hyung. You can't win. He'll ruin you. He'll ruin all of us."
Minjun smiled, but it was a blade, not warmth. "Then he should have done it already. But he didn't, did he? Because you can't kill a chorus."
The goons stepped in. Jiwoo swung the filing cabinet lid like a shield. Miri ducked under the amp cable, scrambling for the back door. Kids scattered — phones still rolling, streaming the chaos out into the city whether Starline liked it or not.
Minjun didn't fight. He didn't raise a fist. He just locked eyes with Sunho as the suits gripped his arms.
"You can shut this down tonight," Minjun said as they dragged him backwards, "but every kid who heard me is a rooftop now. And you can't guard every roof."
Sunho didn't reply. His hands trembled as he pulled out his phone, already calling Seojin to report that the leash was back on — for now.
As the suits bundled Minjun into a waiting black car, the broadcast feed flickered back to life for just a heartbeat — enough for thousands of screens to catch one last frame: Minjun's eyes, wide and fierce in the harsh security lights.
And behind him, half the kids in the room were still singing — a ragged echo, imperfect but unstoppable.
The betrayal was real — but so was the chorus.