The world didn't stop when Julian collapsed.
The lights dimmed, the crowd screamed, someone backstage cut the music. His group rushed to his side. A medic emerged from the wings. It was chaos—but it passed, like everything did. The headlines the next day said "Overworked Idol's Health Scare," and the footage trended for three hours before getting buried under a scandal involving another group's stylist.
By morning, people moved on.
Julian didn't.
---
He woke in the dressing room, not a hospital.
A handheld diagnostic patch clung to his collarbone, blinking amber. He felt like he'd been chewed up and spit out by the stage floor. Someone had shoved a mint between his teeth—sweet, sharp—and his entire chest ached with an almost nostalgic throb.
He wasn't alone.
George sat nearby, headphones slung around his neck, scrolling through rehearsal footage on his tablet. His fingers moved fast, but his foot tapped off-beat. Nervous. Restless.
When Julian stirred, George looked up. His dark eyes darted away too quickly.
"You scared the hell out of everyone."
Julian didn't reply. He sat up slowly, peeling the diagnostic patch from his chest. It left behind a faint square of raw skin.
George shifted. "You should've told us you weren't feeling good."
"I didn't think it was serious."
"You passed out."
"It happens."
---
Later that night, when the dorm lights were off and the others were pretending to sleep, Julian lay awake, staring at the ceiling fan as it ticked in slow, lazy circles. His thoughts spiraled the same way—slow, heavy, and going nowhere.
The collapse wasn't the problem.
The problem was, it hadn't surprised him.
---
The Group: NOX
They weren't like the others.
They weren't sculpted from marble or stitched together in private clinics with perfect cheekbones and camera-calibrated faces. They were just... boys. Boys that had survived the worst, just....boys
Five of them. Each rough around the edges. Each with a different story that bled into the next.
George— the strategist, dancer, obsessive perfectionist.
Ren — the joker, whose smile always arrived before his words.
Marvo — the youngest, still wide-eyed, still too soft for this world.
Tae — the quiet one, muscle memory in place of conversation.
Julian — the center. Not because he wanted to be, but because he had to be.
They'd trained in stairwells. Practiced in basements. Recorded demos in borrowed booths. Their fans didn't love them for their shine—they loved them because they tried, and they failed, and they tried again.
But trying wasn't enough anymore.
The industry had changed.
Now, every billboard face had skin like polished stone and teeth set like diamonds. They moved with precision only surgery could buy. The top idols weren't born—they were built. Programs chose their features. Surgeons assembled them. Agencies hired them after the dust settled and the stitches dissolved.
Julian's group—NOX—was one of the last "organic" groups still charting. Barely.
They had no sponsor. No exclusive contracts. Just fans. Just sweat.
And Julian's collapse had shaken something in them they didn't want to name.
---
In the days after, the practice room became... quieter.
Tae stopped correcting Min's footwork.
George showed up early and left early, alone.
Ren made fewer jokes.
They were still a unit, still moving in the same general direction—but not as tightly. Not as naturally. Something had shifted.
Julian could feel it in the way Min avoided eye contact during warmups. In how Ren always asked, "You good?" but never waited for the answer. In the way they danced with more precision now—as if preparing for something.
Or someone else.
They didn't talk about it.
They never talked about important things.
They just kept moving.
---
To uncle Shane, Julian went alone.
The clinic was small but high-end, hidden in the commercial district's quieter end. No neon signs, no glowing ads, just polished concrete and tinted glass.
Dr. Shane greeted him with a warm smile and cooler hands.
"Still ticking, I see," the man said lightly, checking Julian's vitals.
Julian shrugged. "Barely."
The doctor was one of the few people who didn't look at him like a product. He had treated Julian once, early in their trainee days, when Julian's leg had seized up from malnutrition. After that, he'd offered help when he could. Said he believed in the group.
Julian had come back because he didn't know where else to go.
The scans took twenty minutes.
Shane didn't say much as he examined the data. He hummed once—low and brief—and then touched a button to bring up Julian's cardiac readout.
"What does it say?" Julian asked.
"Something I don't understand yet," Shane admitted. "You're stable. But... strange."
"Strange how?"
"Your heart rhythm is... atypical. More machine-like than human."
Julian stiffened. "Is that bad?"
Shane paused. "Not necessarily. But it's not good, either."
He leaned back, folding his hands in his lap.
"You need to slow down."
Julian almost laughed. "In this industry?"
"Then you need options. I can help you. But we'd be talking about... surgery. Time off. Rest."
Julian stared at the readout. Blue lines danced like lies.
"I'll think about it."
---
Two weeks later, their agency got a call.
The Star Program.
A three-month televised competition between rising idol groups. The winner would get a performance deal, sponsorships, and a guaranteed contract with a high-tier label.
It was the last chance kind of offer.
The producer called it a miracle. George called it suicide. Ren called it fate. Marvo cried. Tae said nothing.
Julian listened.
The others looked at him—not for leadership, not for approval—but because he was the oldest, the first trainee, the center. The heart, even if he didn't have one.
He hadn't told them about Shane.
He hadn't told them about the mechanical rhythm or the metallic pain in his chest every morning.
He just nodded.
"We do it."
The vote wasn't unanimous, but it didn't need to be.
---
That night, the group sat in their shared kitchen, picking at leftover rice and sliced meat from a sponsorship promo.
Marvo finally spoke. "What if... we don't win?"
George's hand clenched around his chopsticks. "Then we go back to selling fan kits and doing livestreams from our bathroom."
"No," Julian said, softly. "If we don't win, we disband."
Silence.
It wasn't a threat. It was the truth.
Ren leaned back. "At least we'd go out with a bang."
"Speak for yourself," George muttered. "We've worked too hard for it to end like this."
Julian didn't answer.
He felt the ticking again in his chest.
Louder this time.
Like a countdown.